Israel going ahead on settler homes
JERUSALEM: Israel moved ahead yesterday with a settler housing plan in a sensitive area near East Jerusalem, a step critics said was aimed at shoring up the project before United States presidentelect Joe Biden takes office.
On its website, the Israel Land Authority (ILA) invited contractor bids for building 1257 homes in Givat Hamatos, under a plan revived in February by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after it had been effectively frozen by international opposition.
Bidding ends on January 18, the ILA said, two days before Biden is to be sworn in to replace President Donald Trump, whose administration has been supportive of Israeli settlement on occupied land Palestinians seek for a state.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said settlements were illegal under international law and the tender was part of Israeli efforts ‘‘to kill the internationallybacked twostate solution’’.
Opponents of the project said it would sever parts of East Jerusalem from the nearby Palestinian town of Bethlehem in the West Bank.
Peace Now, an Israeli antisettlement group, accused the Netanyahu Government of ‘‘taking advantage of the final weeks of the Trump administration in order to set facts on the ground’’ at Givat Hamatos.
As vicepresident in Democrat Barack Obama’s administration, Biden, on a visit to Israel and the West Bank in 2010, publicly scolded Israel over a plan it announced then to build 1600 homes in the Ramat Shlomo settlement.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said Washington no longer viewed Jewish settlements in areas captured in the 1967 Middle East war as ‘‘inconsistent with international law.’’ He is soon to visit Israel. — Reuters