Israel Advances New Settlement Plan in Jerusalem

Palestinian buildings are seen at right, behind a section of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat, foreground, Thursday, June 9, 2022. (AP)
Palestinian buildings are seen at right, behind a section of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat, foreground, Thursday, June 9, 2022. (AP)
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Israel Advances New Settlement Plan in Jerusalem

Palestinian buildings are seen at right, behind a section of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat, foreground, Thursday, June 9, 2022. (AP)
Palestinian buildings are seen at right, behind a section of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat, foreground, Thursday, June 9, 2022. (AP)

Israel has advanced a new statement plan in Jerusalem after postponing it for several weeks due to US President Joe Biden’s recent visit to the region.
Israel’s Jerusalem Municipality issued a tender to establish 434 settlement units on lands belonging to the Palestinian town of Sur Baher, southeast of Jerusalem.

The “Grand Project” is estimated to cost about 1.07 billion shekels. Once implemented, it will reach the 1967 borders, which the Palestinians demand to be the borders of their future state.

The Israel-based Azorim Investment Development and Construction Company is set to implement the project, which has a total area of ​​about 7.3 dunums, extending to Ramat Rachel settlement, overlooking Bethlehem.

The new projects sparked anger among Palestinians who considered it an integral part of the campaigns to Judaize Jerusalem and distort its cultural Palestinian, Christian, Islamic identity.

Palestine’s Foreign Ministry denounced the tender, stressing that it is part of a racist colonial expansionist scheme that aims to isolate Jerusalem from its vicinity and an extension of the crimes of the occupation and its settlers on the ground.

“It (project) seeks to deepen settlement and the theft of more land in a way that undermines efforts to launch a real and feasible peace process and negotiations between Palestine and Israel,” the ministry explained.

It held the Israeli government fully and directly responsible for the ongoing settlement crimes and considered the settlement-deepening attempts a systematic provocation of conflicts.

The Ministry called on the international community and the US administration to take immediate action to protect the two-state solution and translate the anti-settlement stance into practical measures and steps that would force the occupying power to stop it immediately.

Hamas Movement also condemned Israel’s new plan and considered it a further Judaization attempt to target the city’s identity.

“It is a desperate attempt that will not succeed in obliterating the landmarks of the holy city and changing historical facts,” it stressed in a statement.

A Hamas spokesman said this “Zionist crime will be confronted with the unity and struggle of our people by all means.”

Hamas urged Palestinians to have more patience and stand still in the face of the occupation’s violations and Judaization schemes.



Israeli Airstrikes Kill at Least 30 Palestinians in Gaza, Medics Say

A body arrives at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah town, central Gaza Strip, 31 October 2024. (EPA)
A body arrives at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah town, central Gaza Strip, 31 October 2024. (EPA)
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Israeli Airstrikes Kill at Least 30 Palestinians in Gaza, Medics Say

A body arrives at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah town, central Gaza Strip, 31 October 2024. (EPA)
A body arrives at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah town, central Gaza Strip, 31 October 2024. (EPA)

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 30 Palestinians since Monday night, Palestinian media and medics said on Tuesday, as the Israeli army tightened its siege on northern areas of the enclave.

An airstrike damaged two houses in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, where the army has carried out new operations since Oct. 5, and killed at least 20 people late on Monday, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media said.

The Gaza health ministry did not immediately confirm the toll. Four other people were killed in the central Gazan town of Al-Zawayda around midnight on Monday, medics said.

Palestinian health officials said six people had also been killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah in the central area of the narrow enclave.

The Israeli military said, without giving details, that its forces had "eliminated terrorists" in the central Gaza Strip and Jabalia area. Israeli troops had also located weapons and explosives over the past day in the southern Rafah area, where "terrorist infrastructure sites" had been eliminated, it said.

Palestinians said the new attacks and Israeli orders for people to evacuate were aimed at emptying two northern Gaza towns and a refugee camp to create buffer zones.

Israel says its forces have killed hundreds of Palestinian gunmen and dismantled military infrastructure in Jabalia in the past month.

More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed in more than a year of war in Gaza, the authorities in Gaza say, and much of the territory has been reduced to ruins.

The war began after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.