Israeli occupation government puts out tenders for most serious illegal settlement project since 1967

[ 20/04/2009 - 09:45 AM ]

AMMAN, (PIC)--

The Israeli occupation government (IOG) has called for tenders to implement the biggest settlement project since Israel occupied the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem in 1967, a Palestinian official told a Jordanian paper.

Khalil Al-Tafakji, the director of maps and surveys in the Orient House in occupied Jerusalem, told Al-Ghad newspaper published on Sunday that the 1.5 billion dollars plan was sanctioned by the incumbent government of Benjamin Netanyahu after the outgoing government had drawn its broad lines.

The project, which extends from Latrun to the eastern area of occupied Jerusalem reaching to Bethlehem, includes the construction of infrastructure, railroads and factories, he elaborated.

Tafakji underlined that the most dangerous goals of the project is increasing the number of Jews in the holy city through establishing more settlement outposts and luring Jews to move from the coastal areas to Jerusalem.

He said that the project in short targets judaizing Jerusalem and reducing the number of its Arab inhabitants to 12% through a number of aggressive measures and practices.

The Palestinian official said that the IOG was exploiting the Palestinian rift and Arab weakness to end once and for all the conflict over Jerusalem in its favor.