OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 4 June — Work started yesterday on hundreds of new Israeli homes in occupied East Jerusalem, with builders putting up a fence round the construction site under police guard, Mayor Ehud Olmert told Israeli public radio. The new 14-hectare (35-acre) development, named Nof Zaav — Golden Landscape, in Hebrew — will be built in the Arab district of Jabal Mukabar, Olmert said.
However, the Israeli radio quoted Palestinian residents of Jabal Mukabar as saying that when they requested permits to build on it, the municipality told them it was designated a "green area" where construction was not allowed. Mahmoud Abed Daat, a member of one of the families that claims the land, a ravine containing olive groves with Palestinian homes on either side, said the residents have documents proving the land belongs to them. "Many people here have documents dating back to Jordanian, British and Turkish rule," he said.
Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem say it is virtually impossible for them to get building permits from the Jerusalem municipality, which they say hands them out to Jewish building projects for political reasons. Left-wing opposition leader Yossi Sarid, who heads the Meretz party, denounced the planned construction, telling the radio it would "sabotage all chances of peace and only lead to more Palestinian terrorism".
The construction site is little more than a wide area of rocky scrub land perched on the side of a steep hill.
