AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – The occupying regime of Israel is planning to build a major settler area in occupied East Al-Quds, close to Beit Safafa and Sharafat, two Palestinian neighborhoods on the main road to the city of Bethlehem.
The so-called planning and building committee in the Zionist regime’s Al-Quds municipality is set to discuss on Wednesday the construction of Givat Shaked, a new settler neighborhood, which would occupy 38 dunams (3.8 hectares) of East Al-Quds.
Givat Shaked will consist of 473 units for Zionist settlers, a synagogue, and elementary and reception schools.
It will be close to the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Safafa, but will be “unconnected” to it.
The occupying regime’s planning committee said that Givat Shaked sits on a “high-quality” land plot in the southeast section of East Al-Quds, occupied by the Zionist regime in the 1967 Middle East war.
“After the plan is approved, the neighborhood will be marketed in compliance with the relevant regulations of the administrator general’s office,” the committee said, according to Haaretz.
Givat Shaked is one of several settlement projects the regime of extremist prime minister Naftali Bennett has launched since June.
In October, the occupying regime also said it was building a new Zionist neighborhood in Givat Hamatos, in southern East Al-Quds near the city of Bethlehem. Givat Hamatos, Atarot and Givat Shaked are all beyond the 1967 armistice line.
The occupying regime of Israel makes it impossible for Palestinians in East Al-Quds to build new homes. Since it took control of the city in 1967, it has not approved a single new neighborhood for Palestinians.
As of May, the Zionist regime had demolished 61 properties owned by Palestinian residents of East Al-Quds: 33 were houses
 and the rest used as commercial and non-residential buildings, according to Ir Amim, an Israel rights group. In 2019, 358,800 Palestinians and 557,600 Zionists lived in East Al-Quds.
Israel occupied East Al-Quds during the 1967 Six Day War, before annexing it in a move that has never been recognized by most of the international community.