"Israel" to Expand Illegal Settlements ~ 1300 new settler homes to be built

Source: Alalam.ir, 13-06-2008

AL-QUDS--An ‘Israeli' occupying regime's planning body has given the thumbs up for construction of 1,300 new homes for illegal settlers in occupied east al-Quds.

The houses will be built in Ramat Shlomo in the northern part of the holy city where there are already 2,000 settler homes, the Zionist regime's Haaretz newspaper reported on Friday said.

It said the decision to go ahead was taken on Tuesday by the al-Quds urban planning commission, and is one of the most ambitious expansion plans for settler homes in the east of the city.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat expressed outrage at the decision.

He said: "We firmly condemn this project which reveals the Israeli regime's intention to destroy peace."

"The international community must make ‘Israel' stop its settlement activity if it wants to give peace negotiations a chance," he added.

On June 2, after the ‘Israeli' regime announced plans to construct 884 more houses in east al-Quuds, the White House warned that building such settlements "exacerbates the tensions" with the Palestinians.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due in the occupied territories late on Saturday for a two-day trip aimed at injecting momentum into the moribund peace process revived to great fanfare in the US last November.

Little progress has been made so far, with the thorny settlements issue one of the major bones of contention.

East al-Quds was occupied by the ‘Israeli' occupying regime in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognized by the international community.