Israel should roll back its plans to undertake the construction of more than 1,200 homes in Givat Hamatos neighborhood in east Jerusalem, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov on Wednesday
UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th November, 2020) Israel should roll back its plans to undertake the construction of more than 1,200 homes in Givat Hamatos neighborhood in east Jerusalem, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov on Wednesday.
"On November 15, Israeli authorities opened the bidding process for construction of over 1,200 housing units in the Givat Hamatos settlement. I call for this step to be reversed," Mladenov told a UN Security Council meeting.
Mladenov explained that if constructed, the project would consolidate a "ring of settlements" between Jerusalem and Bethlehem and would extensively hinder the prospects for a future Palestinian State and reaching a two-state solution based on 1967 lines.
On Sunday, Peace Now (Shalom Achshav), the non-government organization that advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said that the Israeli Construction and Housing Ministry had issued a tender for 1,257 settlement units in the Givat Hamatos district.
Peace Now described the move as a "major blow" to the prospects for peace and the possibility of a two-state solution. The deadline for submitting proposals is January 18, 2021 - three days before the presumably new US administration will enter the White House.
Israeli settlement activity contradicts the recent historic agreements between Tel Aviv and several Arab countries, including the UAE and Bahrain on the normalization of relations. These peace agreements, among other things, entailed Israel giving up its annexation plans in the West Bank.
A number of European nations have already expressed concern about Israel's plans to build new housing units in East Jerusalem.
