Perilous Times
Israel plans more homes for East Jerusalem: report
JERUSALEM
Fri Feb 26, 2010 2:17am EST
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has plans to build another 600 homes in
occupied land it considers part of East Jerusalem, the Haaretz daily
newspaper reported on Friday.
World
The plan approved by a district planning commission could further
stymie U.S.-brokered efforts to renew stalled peace talks as
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who has insisted on a total
settlement freeze including in Jerusalem.
Israeli spokesmen for the Jerusalem municipality and the Interior
Ministry that oversees the planning commission were not immediately
available for comment.
A similar building plan proposed late last year for elsewhere in the
Jerusalem area drew international condemnation.
Israel has also been criticized for court-approved evictions of
Palestinians from homes in East Jerusalem and threatened demolitions of
other houses it says were built illegally.
The newspaper said more homes were intended to be built near the Pisgat
Zeev neighborhood and the Palestinian area of Shuafat, but that the
original plan had been scaled back to 600 from an original 1,100 when
it was learned some of the land was owned privately by Palestinians.
More than 200,000 Israelis already live in East Jerusalem and nearby
areas of the West Bank that Israel captured in a 1967 war and considers
part of the biblical city it sees as its eternal and indivisible
capital.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu excluded Jerusalem from a
10-month moratorium in settlement building he ordered in November.
The World Court has ruled that all the settlements Israel has built in
occupied territory are illegal.
(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Alison Williams)