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