LONDON: Israel plans to expand its Gilo settlement in southwestern East Jerusalem by building an additional 2,300 houses, further isolating East Jerusalem from Bethlehem in the south of the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli Jerusalem Municipality’s Planning and Building Committee intends to construct the properties on a 200,000 sq. meter site at the settlement, which was established in 1971 along a vital road leading south to Bethlehem and Hebron.
The planned expansion was first reported by Ir Amim, an Israeli nonprofit organization that monitors Tel Aviv’s policies in Jerusalem. It forms part of wider settlement-expansion activity in the area, including at Givat Hamatos and Har Homa, which are situated on the eastern and western sides of Hebron Road.
The Palestinian Authority warned that the plan seeks to create a new reality on the ground that geographically separates East Jerusalem from the southern West Bank, and further hinders the possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
It was also characterized as part of an aggressive settlement drive that has been spearheaded by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since late 2023.
There are already 279 settlements in the West Bank, including 14 in East Jerusalem. Last month, Israel approved a budget of about $430 million to build 34 new settlements in the West Bank, and an additional $355 million for the construction of roads to serve them.
During an emergency meeting in Amman on Wednesday, the foreign ministers of Arab countries and representatives of Turkiye, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan called for decisive international action to halt Israeli violations in Jerusalem, and at the city’s holy sites.
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, accused Israel of violating the sanctity of holy sites in Jerusalem, including Al-Aqsa Mosque, and stressed that “an occupying power has no sovereignty over occupied territory.”
