JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Israel is preparing to build 1,100 new settler homes in occupied East Jerusalem as the United States strives to revive dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, an NGO said.
Danny Seidemann, director of Jerusalem settlement watchdog Terrestrial Jerusalem, told AFP that contracts for 300 homes in the northeastern settlement of Ramot were signed and another 797 plots were to be offered for sale in the southern Jerusalem settlement of Gilo, near the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
Both are in Palestinian areas of the holy city which were occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day war then annexed, in a move still unrecognized by the international community.
Seidemann said that the plans were approved last year, before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quietly ordered a settlement freeze, but the latest steps in their implementation were leaked to media by the office of hardline Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel.
"This does not mean that the freeze is over, it does mean that Netanyahu's minister of construction is trying to achieve that," Seidemann said. more
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