Israel plans 1,121 new settler homes

Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel's construction and housing ministry yesterday published tenders for 1,121 new settler homes, most of them them in annexed east Jerusalem, with others in the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian officials yesterday said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet next week Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad.
They didn't elaborate the purpose of the meeting but hinted at the stalled peace process to be the subject matter.
Of that number, 872 are to be built in Har Homa, a contentious settlement neighbourhood in the southern part of Arab east Jerusalem, according to documents published on the ministry website.
Another 180 are to be built in Givat Zeev, just to the north of Jerusalem in the West Bank, while the remaining 69 are to be built in Katzrin in the occupied Golan Heights, the documents showed.
Contacted by AFP, a ministry spokesman dismissed the tenders as "nothing new," but settlement activists said it was the first time the offers had been made public.
The spokesman said the tenders were part of the punitive campaign Israel vowed to wage against the Palestinians after they won membership at the UN cultural organisation, UNESCO.
In early November, Israel said it would build 2,000 new settler homes in response to UNESCO's decision to accept Palestine as a member, of which 1,650 homes were to be built in east Jerusalem.
The announcement came as Israel took the surprise step of evicting 15 Jewish settlers from a disputed property in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, accusing them of not obtaining the necessary military permits for the purchase.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Syrian Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War.
The international community considers all Israeli settlement on occupied land to be illegal under international law.