Jerusalem - Israel plans to build over 1,100 housing units in East Jerusalem, and the tenders will be published soon, a cabinet minister said Tuesday, denying the government was freezing construction in Jewish neighbourhoods in the city. Housing Minister Zeev Boim told Israel Radio that 370 units will be built in the controversial neighbourhood of Har Homa, in the southern outskirts of the city, and 750 will be constructed in Pisgat Zeev, which lies in the north.
An Israeli announcement in early December, that it will build 300 homes in Har Homa, drew international criticism and very nearly derailed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which were just about to get started after a seven-year hiatus.
Both Har Homa and Pisgat Zeev lie in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and annexed shortly afterwards, but which Palestinians see as the capital of their future state.
Although Israel regards the two neighbourhoods as being within the expanded Jerusalem city limits, Palestinians accord them the same status as West Bank settlements, which are regarded as illegal under international law.
The future of Jerusalem is one of the core issues Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are grapplIng with and Israel hopes that in any peace deal it will have sovereignty over the Jewish neighbourhoods it has built in the areas of Jerusalem captured in the 1967 war.
Reacting to a claim by Jerusalem city manager Yair Ma'ayan, that the government was barring construction of hundreds of apartments in Jewish neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem, Boim told the radio that while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he wants to personally authorize building projects in the West Bank, this directive did not apply to East Jerusalem.
"As regards everything connected to Jerusalem, there is no halt, no instructions" he said. "We are building all over within the Jerusalem municipal borders."
