Occupied Jerusalem, July 13 (Petra) – The so-called District Planning
and Building Committee of the Israeli Jerusalem municipality on
Sunday evening gave the greenlight to a plan to construct about 450
new settlement units in the Palestinian neighborhood of Umm Lison in
occupied East Jerusalem, according to Haaretz newspaper.

The new construction bears the number “1049873”, the newspaper
reported in its Monday edition, adding that “Tobodia” real estate
firm submitted the plan in 2022, but was frozen for more than two
years due to a requirement by the committee to widen the road leading
to the project site.

The targeted neighborhood of Umm Lison, located between Jabal
al-Mukabber and Sur Baher in Arab East Jerusalem, comprises about 800
Palestinian-owned homes, mostly two- or three-story buildings.

The new scheme entails the construction of high-rise buildings up to
ten stories, with around 450 additional housing units, which will
radically alter the urban character and demographic structure of the
Palestinian neighborhood, said the paper.

The latest settlement project is the largest in terms of unit numbers
inside a Palestinian neighborhood of Jerusalem, dwarfing the Ma’ale
HaZeitim settlement enclave in Ras al-Amud of about 120 housing
units.

The new project is to settle nearly 2,000 Israelis in the heart of an
existing Palestinian neighborhood.

//Petra//SS