"By doing this, Israel has destroyed all the US efforts and ended any possibility of a return to negotiations," Nabil Abu Rudeina said in a statement after Israeli forces demolished part of a former hotel in east Jerusalem. The Hotel Shepherd is being partially demolished to make way for 20 new homes for Jewish occupiers in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
"Israel has no right to build in any part of east Jerusalem, or any part of the Palestinian land occupied in 1967," Abu Rudeina said, calling on the United States to "stop Israeli tampering."
On Sunday morning, three bulldozers tore down part of the dilapidated hotel, which was once the home to Jerusalem's mufti religious leader, Haj Amin Al-Husseini.
The Jeddah-based Organization of the Islamic Conference blasted the demolition as a "flagrant violation of international law."
An estimated 2,000 Jewish occupiers live in Palestinian neighborhoods in annexed east Jerusalem, although the exact number of properties they own is unclear.
Peace talks are currently stuck over Israeli construction in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians see as their future capital. The Palestinians say they will not renew talks without an Israeli settlement freeze that includes the area, which was captured along with the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war.
Israeli and Palestinian envoys are heading to Washington this week in an attempt to move talks forward, but the Palestinians say the envoys will not talk directly to each other. The people behind the project “want to settle here and make the situation in Jerusalem even more problematic than it is now,” said Mossi Raz, an Israeli peace activist and former lawmaker, at the demolition site.
Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, refused to discuss the Shepherd Hotel project but called on the Palestinians to return to talks. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the project. “As long as this government continues with settlement and acts like the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel there will be no negotiations,” Erekat said.
The Shepherd Hotel project is funded by Jewish American millionaire Irving Moskowitz, a longtime patron of Jewish occupiers. Sheikh Jarrah is the scene of a weekly protest against the evictions of Palestinians to make way for occupiers.
The 250,000 Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem consider the Jewish neighborhoods to be illegal settlements.
