OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP)
In a move likely to put more strains on Middle East peace talks and to enrage Palestinians, Israel’s housing ministry declared on Sunday that it will build 884 more houses in occupied east Jerusalem.
"After the weekly cabinet session (Sunday) we will invite tenders for the construction of 121 housing units in Har Homa and 763 others in Pisgat Zeev," ministry spokesman Eran Sidis told AFP.
The two neighborhoods lie in Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied and unilaterally annexed after the 1967 war but which the Palestinians have demanded as their capital in recently revived U.S.-backed peace talks.
"These offers are being published for the occasion of Jerusalem Day, celebrating the 41st anniversary of the reunification of the city," Sidis said, referring to Israel's occupation of east Jerusalem in the Six Day War.
Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski defended the move, telling public radio it was necessary to address the "urgent need for housing for the Jewish population."
Har Homa, which lies on the outskirts of the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem, has been a flashpoint in the dispute over the city since its construction in the late 1990s.
The controversy over Har Homa was reignited when, less than a week after the two sides formally re-launched peace talks in the U.S. city of Annapolis in November, Israel unveiled plans to build more than 300 new housing units there.
The latest planned expansions come on the eve of the next scheduled meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who have pledged to try to strike a full peace deal by January 2009.
The two have held several meetings since the talks were re-launched at the international conference hosted by U.S. President George W. Bush but have made little apparent progress since then.
The Palestinians have repeatedly called the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank including east Jerusalem the biggest obstacle to a final peace deal. |
