Israel approves 600 new homes in Jerusalem

Israel has given the green light for 600 new homes in a Jewish settlement in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, the Haaretz daily reported on Friday, as clashes entered the fifth day in Hebron over Israel's heritage row.

The development in the Pisgat Zeev neighborhood, which has been planned for some years, was approved with modifications by the interior ministry's Jerusalem district urban planning committee on Jan. 12, a document obtained by AFP showed.

Interior ministry spokeswoman Efrat Orbach told AFP: "It's an old project, the principle of which was approved several years ago."

Settlements

The original plan had been for 1,100 housing units but it was scaled back, Haaretz said.

Israel's continued expansion of settlements is one of the biggest obstacles to the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians, now suspended for more than a year.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Friday prayed at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank on the fifth day of clashes amid mounting international concern over Israel's addition of the shrine to its national heritage list.

Dozens of Palestinian youths hurled rocks and set up burning barricades in running battles with Israeli soldiers, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades, an AFP correspondent reported. There were no reports of casualties.

Meanwhile, Fayyad joined the main weekly Muslim prayers at the contentious holy site in Hebron on the occupied West Bank, vowing that it would one day be controlled by a future Palestinian state.

Flashpoint

"The Palestinian people understand extremely well that this decision has a political dimension, and that it is aimed at Israel expropriating sites that are part of an occupied territory," he added.

"These sites belong to a future Palestinian state," he said, reaffirming "the inalienable right of the Palestinian people on their soil."

Hebron has long been a flashpoint.

Dozens of Jews were killed in Hebron riots in 1929 that virtually ended the Jewish presence in the city until after the 1967 Middle East war, when a few hundred Jewish settlers established an enclave in the center, living under heavy protection from the army amid 160,000 Palestinians.

But tensions have been running particularly high this week as Thursday marked the anniversary of the Feb. 25, 1994 killing by a hardline settler of 29 Palestinian worshippers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the heritage plan involves only restoration work and there would be no attempt to change the delicate status quo that allows both Jews and Muslims to pray at the site, which both religions hold to be the burial place of their biblical forefathers.

But his decision to include the Hebron tomb and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, also on the West Bank, in a national heritage restoration plan has drawn strong criticism.

On Friday the head of the United Nations cultural body UNESCO "expressed her concern" at the plan and the "resulting escalation of tension in the area."

These sites belong to a future Palestinian state...the inalienable right of the Palestinian people on their soil

Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad

UNESCO worried

UNESCO chief Irina Bokova Bokova endorsed a statement by Robert Serry, U.N. coordinator for the Middle East peace process, that the sites have "historical and religious significance not only to Judaism but also to Islam and to Christianity."

"The director general reiterated UNESCO's long-standing conviction that cultural heritage should serve as a means for dialogue," her statement said.

Her statement comes after Israel's ally the United States described the move as "provocative," and the Islamic bloc at the United Nations called for international action to force Israel to rescind its decision.

Netanyahu's move also drew fire at home.

Both the liberal daily Haaretz and the mass circulation Yediot Aharonot carried cartoons of Netanyahu with a box of matches, indicating how provocative they saw his proposals to be.

Haaretz dubbed the prime minister a "master pyromaniac" for the move, recalling it was Netanyahu who during a previous term as premier in 1996 sparked bloody riots in Jerusalem by ordering the opening of a tunnel under another disputed holy site.

Haaretz said the two sites deserved to be preserved as part of Jewish as well as Muslim heritage.

But it asked whether it was really necessary to "open such a Pandora's box at a time when the world is looking for a resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians."

In the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis, several hundred members of the radical Islamic Jihad group protested the decision, warning it would infuriate Muslims.