Israel exploits war on Gaza to build new settlement in occupied East Jerusalem: Rights group

By Abdelraouf Arna'out

JERUSALEM (AA) - Israeli authorities are exploiting the war on Gaza to build a new settlement in occupied East Jerusalem, an Israeli rights group said on Tuesday.

According to the Israeli leftist rights group Ir Amim, which monitors the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Jerusalem, the new settlement is the first settlement plan to be fully approved by the Israeli government since 2012, during which the Givat Hamatos settlement was approved.

The plan of the Lower Aqueduct settlement will have "disastrous ramifications," as it "will extend the Israeli settlement wedge along East Jerusalem's southern boundary," Ir Amim said.

It said the new settlement plan is expected to include 1,792 housing units which will be built on lands belonging to the East Jerusalem's Sur Baher neighborhood.

Ir Amim stressed that the Israeli plan reflects "the acute discrimination in Israeli urban planning," adding that settlement plans for Israelis are advancing annually while "Palestinian residential development has been all but neglected."

Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.

Estimates indicate that about 700,000 Israeli settlers are living in 164 settlements and 116 outposts in the occupied West Bank, adjacent to East Jerusalem.

Under international law, all Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are considered illegal.

International observers have said Israeli settlements are designed to preempt any attempt to form a geographically contiguous state including the now-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar