That has forced thousands to build without authorization - at risk of demolition - or move to the occupied West Bank.
Hassan-Nahoum, the deputy mayor, noted that Israel has facilitated the construction of an industrial zone and a shopping mall nearby that cater to Palestinians.īut even if they can work and shop in Jerusalem, Palestinians suffer from a severe housing crisis rooted in a discriminatory permit system and lack of space. “As soon as they approve it, it’s like a snowball,” Ofran said. A municipal committee voted in support of the project on Wednesday, and a district committee is expected to approve it Dec. Ofran acknowledged it would be at least four years before construction begins, but said the planning process is well underway. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan is still being discussed at the municipality level.
“The housing project will provide thousands of much needed housing units.”Īn Israeli government official said the project is in the early stages of planning, and that it will likely be years before it comes up for government approval. “Jerusalem is a living, breathing, growing capital city of the state of Israel,” Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum said. The settlement would be right next to Qalandiya, the main military checkpoint between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, through which tens of thousands of Palestinians travel each day. One of the Palestinian neighborhoods, Kufr Aqab, is within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries but on the other side of Israel’s controversial separation barrier, a towering concrete wall that runs along the edge of the proposed site. The Atarot settlement would include 9,000 housing units marketed to ultra-Orthodox Jews, making it a “small city” of some 50,000 people next to three densely populated Palestinian communities, according to Hagit Ofran of the Israeli anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now. It’s one of several settlement projects that are advancing despite condemnation by the Biden administration, which along with the Palestinians and much of the international community views the settlements as an obstacle to resolving the century-old conflict. Israel is moving ahead with plans to build a massive Jewish settlement on the site of a long-abandoned airport that the Palestinians had hoped would one day service their future capital in east Jerusalem.
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