Plan advances for new Israeli neighborhood across Green Line in southeast Jerusalem

A plan for a new neighborhood across the Green Line in southeast Jerusalem with a slated 3,500 housing units and 1,300 hotel rooms advanced through an important stage of the planning process, reports the Ir Amim organization, which campaigns against Israeli construction in East Jerusalem.

The development, known as the Hebron Road Strip due its proximity to that major Jerusalem artery, will be built adjacent to the large and controversial Givat Hamatos development.

“If approved, the Hebron Road Strip will more than double the number of housing units in Givat Hamatos and enlarge the area of the settlement by nearly 40 percent, extending it eastwards toward the settlement of Har Homa,” says Ir Amim.

The organization says that Givat Hamatos, the first new neighborhood to be built across the Green Line in more than 20 years, together with the Hebron Road Strip neighborhood, “are cumulatively sealing-off East Jerusalem’s southern edge from Bethlehem and the southern West Bank while creating more contiguity with the Gush Etzion settlements.”

The group adds that the plans will do nothing to address “the acute housing needs” of the Palestinian population of Jerusalem, and accuses the Israeli authorities of deliberately failing to provide housing opportunities for Palestinians “as a tool for displacement.”