Zionists Plan Settlement in Sensitive Area of Al-Quds
OCCUPIED AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – The occupying regime of Israel moved ahead on Sunday with a settler expansion plan in a sensitive area near East Jerusalem Al-Quds, a step critics said was aimed at shoring up the project before U.S. President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
On its website, the so-called Israel Land Authority (ILA) invited contractor bids for building 1,257 settler units in Givat Hamatos, under a plan revived in February by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu after it had been effectively frozen by international opposition.
Bidding ends on Jan. 18, the ILA said, two days before Biden is to be sworn in to replace President Donald Trump, whose administration has been supportive of the Zionist regime’s settlement on occupied land Palestinians seek for a state.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement that settlements were illegal under international law and the tender was part of Israeli efforts to kill the internationally-backed solution for a Palestinian state.
Opponents of the project in the Givat Hamatos area said it would sever parts of East Jerusalem Al-Quds from the nearby Palestinian town of Bethlehem in the West Bank. The ILA gave no date for the start of construction.
Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement group, accused Netanyahu’s regime of "taking advantage of the final weeks of the Trump administration in order to set facts on the ground” at Givat Hamatos.
As vice president in Democrat Barack Obama’s administration, Biden, on a visit to Occupied Palestine and the West Bank in 2010, publicly scolded the Zionist regime over a plan it announced during his trip to build 1,600
On its website, the so-called Israel Land Authority (ILA) invited contractor bids for building 1,257 settler units in Givat Hamatos, under a plan revived in February by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu after it had been effectively frozen by international opposition.
Bidding ends on Jan. 18, the ILA said, two days before Biden is to be sworn in to replace President Donald Trump, whose administration has been supportive of the Zionist regime’s settlement on occupied land Palestinians seek for a state.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement that settlements were illegal under international law and the tender was part of Israeli efforts to kill the internationally-backed solution for a Palestinian state.
Opponents of the project in the Givat Hamatos area said it would sever parts of East Jerusalem Al-Quds from the nearby Palestinian town of Bethlehem in the West Bank. The ILA gave no date for the start of construction.
Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement group, accused Netanyahu’s regime of "taking advantage of the final weeks of the Trump administration in order to set facts on the ground” at Givat Hamatos.
As vice president in Democrat Barack Obama’s administration, Biden, on a visit to Occupied Palestine and the West Bank in 2010, publicly scolded the Zionist regime over a plan it announced during his trip to build 1,600
homes in the Ramat Shlomo settlement.
But Biden said during the recent presidential campaign that he will not reverse Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem Al-Quds, whose future status is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as Israel’s so-called capital. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said Washington no longer viewed Zionist settlements in areas captured in the 1967 Middle East war as "inconsistent with international law”. He is to visit Occupied Palestine as part of a foreign trip now under way. The settlement expansion comes amid the Zionist regime’s normalization with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and possibly Saudi Arabia. When the news of an agreement broke fire in September, UAE leaders claimed that the occupying regime of Israel had agreed to freeze settlement expansion and annexation of the West Bank as part of the deal, but the Zionist regime vehemently rejected the claim. According to Hebrew-language Yedioth Ahronoth daily newspaper on Friday, Niger is reportedly in secret discussions with Israel about normalizing their relations. The news comes in light of Israeli media reports in recent weeks that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman is encouraging Niger’s officials to take the measure.