FACTBOX - Jerusalem, a city at the heart of conflict

(Reuters) - Jerusalem, where a Palestinian resident killed three Israelis with a bulldozer on Wednesday, lies at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Here are key facts:

HISTORY

On a rocky promontory, watered by springs 760 metres (2,500 feet) up in the hills between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean, Jerusalem has been settled for 5,000 years. It became the centre of Jewish religion and nationhood. Roman rule saw the Temple destroyed in the year 70 and Jews later forced into exile.

Muslims, who revere it as the site of Prophet Mohammad's ascension to heaven, held Jerusalem from the 7th century, interrupted in the 11th to 13th centuries by Christian Crusaders from Europe for whom the city saw the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

For Muslims, the walled Old City features the golden Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque, Jews pray at the Western Wall, a relic of the Temple, and there are many Christian churches.

Britain took Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks in World War One and ruled Palestine for the following three decades.

STATUS

Under a plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state, agreed by the United Nations in 1947, Jerusalem and its region were to be a separate entity -- "corpus separatum" -- under U.N. rule, surrounded by Palestinian territory.

However, in fighting in 1948, Jewish forces took the western suburbs of Jerusalem and land linking it to the new Israeli state. Major powers accepted a de facto divide along a fortified Green Line between Jewish West Jerusalem and Jordanian-ruled East Jerusalem, which included the Old City.