Palestinian sources said that the Israeli authorities will erect a military crossing in the area to replace the existing one. The sources said that the new concrete barrier is 12 meters high and 600 meters in length.
The sources added that the new military crossing will separate the Shu’fat refugee camp, Anata, and the neighborhoods of Ras Khamis, Ras Shihadeh and Al-Salam from occupied East Jerusalem.
The sources said that thousands of Jerusalemites are under the threat of losing their residency in Jerusalem since they are living in these areas.
Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967 war, annexed it, and has since built settlements there that are home to more than 200,000 Israelis.
Control over the city has been seen as the most sensitive and thorniest issue of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians hope to make East Jerusalem the capital of their future state but Israel says the city is its eternal capital.
The development came days after the resumption of direct peace talks between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel.
The Palestinian and Israeli leaderships held three rounds of talks under US sponsorship in the Washington, Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh and Jerusalem, however, neither Israel nor the Palestinians announced a breakthrough over any of the contentious issues, including the issue of settlement construction.
Later this week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York on the sidelines of the 65th UN General Assembly meetings.
However, a senior Fatah official said that Abbas hinted at resigning if the direct peace talks were aborted. Jamal Mhaisen, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, said Abbas informed the movement’s top decision-making body and the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee that he was planning “a serious step” if the negotiations failed.
Mhaisen added that the current situation, in which Israel is unlikely to renew the freeze on all settlement constructions in the West Bank, will force Abbas to take that decision. Abbas accepted a US proposal for resuming direct peace talks with Israel and the talks kicked off on Sept. 2 after they had been stalled for almost 15 months.
The United States said a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians could be achieved in one year. Palestinian Islamist and leftist parties are opposed to these talks.
