A file photo shows a construction site in the Israeli settlement of Gilo in southern East al-Quds (Jerusalem). (File photo)
Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/18/267424/israel-oks-800-settlement-units-in-wb/Israel has approved a plan to build 800 new illegal settlements in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) with tenders for construction expected to be announced within a few months, an NGO says.
The plan received final approval from the Israeli interior ministry on Thursday after it had been published for validation in a newspaper, AFP quoted an official for Peace Now as saying.
"It means that now, a tender can be issued to begin to build 800 housing units west of Gilo," said Hagit Ofran, referring to a large settlement in the southern part of East al-Quds.
"Two weeks from the publication of the ad in the newspapers, the plan is valid and contractors may apply for a construction permit from the Municipality," Ofran wrote on her blog.
"In the case of Gilo’s western slopes plan, which was initiated by the Israel Lands Administration, the contractors should win the bid in order to buy the rights to build, through a tender. Such a tender may be published in a few months," she explained.
More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and illegally annexed East al-Quds.
The Israeli settlements are considered illegal by the UN and most countries as those territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967, and are hence seen as being subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbids construction on occupied lands.
In his address to the UN General Assembly on September 27, Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas condemned Israel’s “catastrophic” settlement expansion as part of Tel Aviv’s ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians and its attempt to change the historic demography of the region.
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