The EU is particularly concerned about settlements inside the Old City, where there were plans to build a Jewish settlement of 35 housing units in the Muslim quarter, as well as expansion plans for Silwan, just outside the Old City walls.
The goal, it said, is to “create territorial contiguity” between East Jerusalem settlements and the Old City and to “sever” East Jerusalem and its settlement blocks from the West Bank.
There are plans for 3,500 housing units, an industrial park, two police stations and other infrastructure in a controversial area known as E1, between East Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, home to 31,000 settlers. Israeli measures in E1 were “one of the most significant challenges to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process,” the report says.
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said conditions for Palestinians living in East Jerusalem were better than in the West Bank.
“East Jerusalem residents are under Israeli law and they were offered full Israeli citizenship after that law was passed in 1967,” he said. “We are committed to the continued development of the city for the benefit of all its population.”
Meanwhile, a member of a Gaza rocket squad was killed and two others were wounded yesterday in what a Palestinian medic said was an Israeli airstrike.
The military said it did not carry out any operations in Gaza yesterday.
The dead man was identified as Mahmoud Fattouh, 25, a member of the violent Islamic Jihad group, a Gaza health official said. Two Islamic Jihad members were wounded in the incident near the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.
The Islamic Jihad squad was targeted as it fired rockets toward Israel, the official and Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Ahmed said.
The Israeli military confirmed that at least five rockets were fired from Gaza toward Israel yesterday, causing no injuries or damage.
Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers separately declared a ceasefire on Jan. 18, after a three-week Israeli military offensive in Gaza.
However, talks on a durable truce have hit a snag, and rocket fire and airstrikes continue. Islamic Jihad, far smaller than Hamas, is most involved in rocket fire.
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