Settler walkway to link Jerusalem settlements

Israeli occupation forces are advancing a plan to build a walkway though the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem to connect two settler residential compounds in the Palestinian At-Tur neighbourhood, Haaretz has reported.

Jerusalem Development Authority is working on the project, named the Uzia Promenade, which would require the expropriation of private Palestinian land.

“The Jerusalem Planning and Construction Committee approved adding the city as a developer and recommended the plan’s approval Wednesday,” Haaretz reported, adding: “It will now be submitted to the Jerusalem District Planning Committee.”

The Ir Amim Association, a human rights group active in monitoring Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories, has criticised the plan as another way through which Israel is Judaising the Old City of Jerusalem.

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The Jerusalem Municipality aims to complicate Palestinians’ access to building permits and municipal services in the occupied city, instead supporting settlements.

Israel completed the occupation of the eastern part of occupied Jerusalem in 1967, later declaring it a “united and eternal capital” alongside West Jerusalem. The international community considered East Jerusalem occupied territories which Palestinians claim as the capital to their future state.