Israel allocates $24m to judaize eastern Jerusalem

[ 01/03/2011 - 05:09 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli controlled municipality of Jerusalem announced that it was allocating around 24 million dollars to "develop and re-organize eastern suburbs of Jerusalem".

Palestinian human rights groups said that the announcement carried by a weekly Hebrew newspaper on Tuesday meant that more judaization of occupied Jerusalem was underway under the guise of development and organization.

The paper Yureshalem said that the project would lead to clashes between the Arab inhabitants of eastern Jerusalem suburbs and the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) similar to past events after the population discovered that the plan was based mainly on destroying large sectors of those neighborhoods.

Mohammed Sadeq, the director of the Quds media center, said in a statement that most of the allocated funds would go to expanding the Buraq plaza adjacent to the holy Aqsa Mosque and opening a new gate in Jerusalem wall to facilitate entry of Israeli security forces and settlers into the holy site.

He drew the attention to the fact that Arab suburbs in Jerusalem were intentionally marginalized while their infrastructure is always neglected. He charged that what the Israelis call development is in fact destruction and confiscation of Arab homes.

In a related context, the IOA banned the convening of two Palestinian conferences in occupied Jerusalem.

Local sources said that a joint police-intelligence force stormed the Capitol Hotel and disbanded a meeting that was about to kick-off on role of national institutions and Arab forces in defending citizens' land and real-estate in Silwan town in occupied Jerusalem in face of growing IOA judaization efforts.

The IOA on Monday night issued orders banning another meeting for the declaration of a Palestinian youth union in Bustan suburb, Silwan.

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