Israeli occupation authorities are planning to build 181 new housing units in Jerusalem, next week, according to the Bilateral Committee for Planning and Municipal Building in the “Gilo” neighborhood of occupied Jerusalem.
According to the report published by Israeli Channel 2, last night, the approval was delayed in order not to affect a recently signed US “security support” agreement.
The newspaper pointed out that construction was stopped during the recent visit of US President Barack Obama to Israel, for Shimon Peres’ funeral.
Al Ray further reports that, after the declaration of the project, international condemnation is expected, especially from the European Union and the United States of America, who consider the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories.
Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestine are the Jewish civilian communities built on lands occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and in the Golan Heights.
Settlements also existed in the Gaza Strip until Israel evacuated settlements in 2005, under Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan. Israel dismantled 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and 4 in the West Bank, in 2005, but continues to expand settlements and seize new areas in the West Bank in spite of the Oslo Accords, which specified in article 31 that neither side would take any step that would change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.
However, Israeli settlement expansion has continued unabated, despite being condemned by almost all other nations and the UN.
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