"Israel" OKs New Settlement Expansion

Source: Alalam.ir, 09-07-2008

AL-QUDS--An ‘Israeli' commission has approved the building of 920 new homes in occupied east Al-Quds, the municipality said on Wednesday, in a new blow to shaky peace talks with the Palestinians.

"The district commission has approved for construction of 920 housing units in Jabel Abu Ghneim," a statement said, referring to a neighborhood in east Al-Quds, known in as Har Homa that has more than 10,000 residents.

The Jabel Abu Ghneim project is part of a plan to build some 40,000 new homes over the next decade in neighbourhoods in both east and west Al-Quds that the housing minister approved in June, a ministry official said.

Until now specific aspects of this project were unknown.

'Israel' occupied and annexed the eastern half of the city after the 1967 war in a move not recognized by the international community or the Palestinians, who wish to make the Holy City the capital of their future state.

A total of 245,000 Palestinians live in east Al-Quds alongside more than 200,000 Jewish settlers.

‘Israel' pledged to halt all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank when peace talks were revived at a conference in the United States last year.

But it considers the whole of Al-Quds its "eternal, undivided" capital and has insisted it will continue to build in both the city's eastern sector and in the larger West Bank settlement blocs that it intends to keep in any deal.

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

The Zionist regime settlement expansion in Al-Quds has infuriated the Palestinians, who have accused ‘Israel' of obstructing peace efforts.

The United States has heavily criticized its close ally over its settlement activity in the occupied territories, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warning that the settlements issue must not block any peace deal.

"No party should be taking steps at this point that could prejudice the outcome of the negotiations," Rice said after meeting Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in June.