The Guardian

‘A hole in my heart’

Dismay at fast-track for settlers’ homes in East Jerusalem

- Jason Burke Jerusalem

Israel’s government has accelerate­d the constructi­on of settlement­s across East Jerusalem, with more than 20 projects totalling thousands of housing units having been approved or advanced since the start of the war in Gaza six months ago, planning documents show.

Ministries and offices within the government are behind all the largest and most contentiou­s of the projects, sometimes in associatio­n with rightwing nationalis­t groups with a history of trying to evict Palestinia­ns from their homes in parts of the city.

The rapid approval or constructi­on of settlement­s that are illegal under internatio­nal law is likely to further damage Israel’s relationsh­ip with the Biden administra­tion.

The war was triggered by surprise Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

“The fast-tracking of these plans has been unparallel­ed in the last six months,” said Sari Kronish from the Israeli human rights organisati­on Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights. “While many government bodies were shuttered or had limited operation following 7 October, the planning authoritie­s continued to plough forward, advancing these plans at unpreceden­ted speed.”

The new settlement­s will offer homes for Israel’s majority Jewish population in parts of Jerusalem that were unilateral­ly annexed in 1980, and are likely to be an obstacle to any attempt to create a viable Palestinia­n state with the east of the city as its capital.

The Gaza war has put a renewed focus on a two-state solution to the

Israeli-Palestinia­n conflict as foreseen by the Oslo accords in the early 1990s. The US, EU and UK have recently imposed sanctions on individual settlers in the West Bank amid surging violence.

Israeli planning authoritie­s have approved two new settlement­s since the outbreak of the war, the first to be approved in East Jerusalem in more than a decade. The expansion of a gated, high-security settlement called Kidmat Zion, in the heart of the Palestinia­n neighbourh­ood Ras al-Amud on the eastern periphery of the city, is also set to go ahead pending comments from the public.

A decision on Kidmat Zion was made just 48 hours after the Hamas attack. The government was officially made part of the project in a planning hearing a month earlier, according to documents on the planning authority’s website.

Two major projects now flank the Palestinia­n community of Beit Safafa, most of which is in East Jerusalem. One, known as Givat Hamatos, was frozen for a decade due to internatio­nal opposition. Work resumed in 2020 and last month the site was busy with workers, machinery and trucks.

According to the most recent official planning documents, its “initiator” and “applicant” is the Israel Land Authority, a government­al body. The document lists stakeholde­rs as

the state of Israel and the Jerusalem municipali­ty, among others.

A second large housing developmen­t is known as Givat Shaked and will be built on the north-western side of Beit Safafa, on a plot of grass and trees.

Official documents viewed by the Guardian show that the entity which has formally filed the plan is the Jerusalem Developmen­t Authority, a statutory body that aims to “promote Jerusalem as a leading internatio­nal city in the economic sector and in quality of life in the public domain”.

The project’s initiator is the Ministry of Justice, through an office known as the General Custodian, which claims responsibi­lity for the land on which Givat Shaked will be built as it includes substantia­l tracts that had Jewish owners before 1948.

The Givat Shaked project has been a source of division since building was first proposed there in the mid1990s. Concerns that this posed a threat to the Oslo peace process led to internatio­nal outrage and Washington pushed Israel to cancel the plan.

Two years ago the scheme regained momentum. The interior minister at the time, Ayelet Shaked, rejected any claims of Palestinia­n control over Jerusalem’s east and said it was “unthinkabl­e to prevent developmen­t and constructi­on in this area, or anywhere else in the city”.

Shaked also stressed the need to increase the supply of housing in Jerusalem. Other supporters of the scheme claimed Palestinia­ns would be able to move into the new “neighbourh­ood”.

Full planning approval was given on 4 January. The scheme involves high-rise blocks containing 700 housing units that occupy the only land in Beit Safafa where the 17,000-strong majority Muslim community could expand to accommodat­e young people.

In the neighbourh­ood, as elsewhere, bureaucrat­ic obstacles and other restrictio­ns usually prevent Palestinia­ns from building larger homes. “Our family has been here for 250 years … Now I have a black hole in my heart because I can’t see how my children and grandchild­ren can spend their lives here,” said Ahmed Salman, 71, the chair of Beit Safafa’s community council.

“We had good relations with the municipali­ty once, but not in recent years. Since the war, life goes on, but they approved the plan and dismissed all our objections. We are appealing, but I’m not optimistic.”

A third project, also near Beit Safafa, is known as Lower Aqueduct and involves the constructi­on of a large settlement adjacent to a Palestinia­n neighbourh­ood. The Lower Aqueduct plan was fully approved on 29 December.

are strategica­lly designated for areas along the southern perimeter of East Jerusalem,” said Amy Cohen of Ir Amim, an Israeli human rights organisati­on.

“If constructe­d, they would further fracture the Palestinia­n space … and create a sealing-off effect of East Jerusalem from Bethlehem and the southern West Bank. Such moves directly undermine conditions necessary for a viable independen­t Palestinia­n state with a contiguous capital in East Jerusalem.

“All this while bringing planning and building for Palestinia­ns in the city to a complete stop.”

The minutes of a planning meeting held in September show that the office of the General Custodian was accepted as a co-applicant on the Kidmat Zion plan, though it was initiated by a private company establishe­d by an organisati­on called Ateret Cohanim, a group that works to increase the Jewish population of East Jerusalem.

Ateret Cohanim has been accused of being behind attempts to evict Palestinia­ns in East Jerusalem and to take over Christian hotels in Jerusalem’s Old City. It said the new settlement, which would be heavily fortified, was to be built on Jewishowne­d land.

A recent UN report noted that the policies of Israel’s government appeared to be aligned with the goals of the Israeli settler movement to an “unpreceden­ted extent”.

Israeli settlement­s in the occupied territorie­s had expanded by a record amount and risked eliminatin­g any practical possibilit­y of a Palestinia­n state, the UN report said.

About 40% of Jerusalem’s population of roughly 1 million are Palestinia­n. Maintainin­g a Jewish majority in the city has been an aim of successive Israeli government­s.

Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the six-day war of 1967 and later annexed it in a move not recognised by most of the internatio­nal community. The permanent settlement of territory occupied militarily is a violation of internatio­nal law.

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 ?? ?? High-rise housing blocks under constructi­on in the settlement of East Talpiot, in an area of East Jerusalem captured by Israel in the sixday war in 1967
High-rise housing blocks under constructi­on in the settlement of East Talpiot, in an area of East Jerusalem captured by Israel in the sixday war in 1967
 ?? PHOTOGRAPH­S: ALESSIO MAMO/THE GUARDIAN ?? A shepherd grazes his sheep in Beit Safafa, East Jerusalem, where Israel plans to build housing for settlers
PHOTOGRAPH­S: ALESSIO MAMO/THE GUARDIAN A shepherd grazes his sheep in Beit Safafa, East Jerusalem, where Israel plans to build housing for settlers

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