Israel advanced plans on Monday for over 700 Jewish homes over the Green Line in east Jerusalem, which were suspended briefly due to US President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories earlier this month.
The Interior Ministry’s District Planning Committee for Jerusalem accepted the deposit of a plan for 1,446 housing units that would be located between the Jewish Har Homa and Givat Hamatos neighborhoods.
Preliminary approval to the project had been given in January, but this was a more formal one.
According to the left-wing group Peace Now, only half of the project is over the Green Line. But it has been argued that the project, known as the “Lower Aqueduct Plan,” is located in a strategic part of the city, next to the area that borders Bethlehem.
The Palestinian Authority and Peace Now have argued that construction projects like this drive a wedge between Bethlehem and nearby east Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhoods.
The Biden administration has opposed Jewish building across the Green Line.
The Lower Aqueduct plan involves 186 dunams, of which only seven dunams are on state land, according to Peace Now. Fifty-two dunams on which the project is located were owned by Jews prior to the 1948 War of Independence, said Peace Now, and another 21 dunams are owned by the Jewish National Fund.
Givat Shaked
The Interior Ministry also debated a plan called Givat Shaked for around 700 units, located over the Green Line in that same area of the city, near the Palestinian neighborhoods of Shuafat and Beit Safafa.
That plan had similarly been suspended due to the Biden visit. The Interior Ministry decided on Monday to hold off on allowing for the plan to be deposited so that more information could be submitted.
Separately, the IDF demolished an illegal Palestinian home in the South Hebron Hills region of the West Bank on Monday.
According to the Palestine News Agency Wafa, the home was located in the Umm Qassa community in Masafer Yatta.
The United Nations has reported that this year Israel has demolished 321 Palestinian structures in the West Bank, displacing 252 people. Last year 718 such structures were taken down displacing 836 people.