Israel has developed plans to build 9,000 settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem, the first such project in the city in more than 20 years, watchdog Peace Now said on Tuesday.
Details of the plan emerged a day after the Israeli Ministry of Transport, National Infrastructure and Road Safety approved a controversial proposal to extend a train line from Tel Aviv into Jerusalem’s flashpoint Old City.
Peace Now said that the Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing a week ago submitted plans to the Jerusalem Municipality to build the settlement units on the site of the unused Atarot Airport, between two Palestinian neighborhoods.
Final approval of the project could take years, but if built, it would drive “a wedge in the heart of the Palestinian urban continuity between Ramallah and East Jerusalem, thus preventing the establishment of a viable Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem,” Peace Now said.
It would be the first new settlement in east Jerusalem since a previous government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu built the Har Homa settlement near Bethlehem in 1997, Peace Now said.
More than 600,000 Jewish settlers live in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, in communities considered illegal under international law.
The plan “also includes the demolition of dozens of Palestinian residential units that were built in the area without permits throughout the years,” Peace Now said.
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