The source stated that the Israeli District Planning and Building Committee approved the project, which is part of the Greater Jerusalem metropolitan plan.

Wafa stressed that the lands on which those buildings will be built were stolen from the towns of Shuafat, Beit Hanina, Beit Safafa, Walaja, Ein Karem, and Lifta.

The plan expects to expand the settlements of Gilo, Kiryat Menachem, Neve Ya’akov, Ramot, Ramat Shlomo, and Pisgat Ze’ev while further isolating the eastern region of the so-called Holy City from the rest of the West Bank.

Khalil al-Tafakji, a cartographer and head of the Jerusalem-based Arab Studies Society’s Map Department, denounced that the initiative aims to renovate the occupied city and change its demography.

Israel occupied the eastern region of the metropolis in the 1967 war and has since refused to hand it over to the Palestinians, despite UN Security Council resolutions and the demands by most of the international community.

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