Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces he has lifted restrictions on construction of the controversial Givat Hamatos neighborhood in East Jerusalem, saying 3,000 homes will be built for Jewish residents there.
The plan for construction in Givat Hamatos was first brought forward in 2012, prompting widespread condemnation in the international community as it would cut off the Palestinian neighborhoods of Beit Safafa and Sharafat from the West Bank, something critics say would place a nail in the coffin of a two-state solution based roughly on the pre-1967 lines.
Netanyahu says that in addition to the 3,000 units in Givat Hamatos, he also green-lit 2,200 units in the Jewish neighborhood of Har Homa as well as 1,000 homes in nearby Beit Safafa, which has long suffered from a housing crisis.
“Coexistence in Jerusalem,” he boasts to reporters from a hilltop near Har Homa. “Jerusalem is being built and expanded. We are connecting all parts of the united Jerusalem. I have removed all the restrictions, and now Jerusalem is being built under my authority.”
This appears to have been the first time Netanyahu has publicly admitted to having placed a building freeze on the Givat Hamatos plan, explaining he had been under immense pressure from other countries not to build there.
— Jacob Magid
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks in front of the Har Homa neighborhood in East Jerusalem on February 20, 2020. (Screen capture/Twitter)
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Thursday, February 20, 2020
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