RAMALLAH – Israel Thursday granted final approval to a plan to build 800 homes near Gilo in annexed east Jerusalem, with tenders for construction likely to be published within a few months, a Peace Now official said. Speaking to a news agency, Hagit Ofran said a plan to build the units had been published for validation in an Israeli newspaper in what is the last phase of the planning process. “It means that now, a tender can be issued to begin to build 800 housing units west of Gilo,” she said. Earlier, PLO's Negotiations Affairs Department said in a statement that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government planned to build thousands of new housing units in Jewish settlements in occupied Jerusalem and around it. It said in a statement that Netanyahu's government “planned at least 11,096 new housing units for Jewish settlements in and around Jerusalem between September 2011 and 2012.” The PLO's department said that “the units were in different stages (tendering and approval).” It said that the housing units, if approved, would provide new homes for at least 44,000 Jewish settlers, adding that Netanyahu's government also planned to construct bypass roads to connect the settlements in the occupied city with those around it. The statement said that the roads “isolate East Jerusalem's neighborhoods from one another and are mostly off limits to Palestinian cars.” The development comes as Netanyahu plans to bring the Levy Report on settlement construction to the Ministerial Committee for Settlements for approval. The Levy Report, published three months ago by retired Supreme Court justice Edmond Levy, found that Israeli settlement in the West Bank is legal under international law and recommended that the government avoid demolishing illegal settlement outposts. The Israeli opposition slammed Netanyahu's plan. Shelly Yacimovich, leader of the Labor party, described the move as “a transparent elections scheme” that will not help the settlers in the West Bank, and will not contribute to Israel's security or international stance. Netanyahu announced last Thursday that Israeli elections would be held on Jan. 22, 2013, nine months ahead of schedule. Yacimovich accused Netanyahu of “trying to bring back a fictitious argument between the Right and Left that does not exist anymore,” as a way to divert attention from the socioeconomic state of affairs. Yisrael Hasson, Knesset Member of the Kadima party, told Israel Radio that the government is “playing with a flame-thrower over a barrel of gasoline.” In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, there are more than 500,000 Jewish occupiers who live with 2.5 million Palestinians. Tension has been always high between the two sides and it often turns into violence. The issue of settlements has stalled the resumption of direct peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. The talks collapsed in October 2010 because Israel insisted on continuing settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The international community, including the United States, Israel's most important ally, has been urging Israel to totally freeze its settlement construction, but the Netanyahu government has so far refused to yield to that demand. The Palestinians insist that they will not resume any direct or indirect peace talks until Israel clearly declares a complete cessation of settlement activities in the territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem which Palestinians want to be the capital of their future state.
