Israel to use Absentee Property Law to approve 1,900 settlement units in Jerusalem

The Planning and Building Committee in the Israeli controlled Jerusalem municipality intends to discuss a new plan for the expansion of illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem tomorrow as a first step toward approving the project.

The plan aims to expand what is known as the Gilo settlement south-eastward, on lands and olive groves owned by residents of the Palestinian city of Beit Jala. It includes the construction of 1,900 new settlement units on 176 dunams (about 43.5 acres) of open land located between the Tunnels Road and the settlement.

Data indicates that 29 per cent of the land included in the plan is classified as private property, 12 per cent is owned by the Israeli municipality and the state, 15 per cent is under the management of the Custodian of Absentee Properties Department, and 44 per cent is not officially registered.

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The occupation authorities seized a large portion of this land through the implementation of the Absentee Property Law, which allows the confiscation of the property of Palestinians who were displaced in or after 1948, according to Ir Amim, a left-wing Israeli organisation specialising in occupied Jerusalem affairs.

Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher with Ir Amim, saidL “The only reason Israel classifies the owners of these lands as ‘absentees’ is because it annexed their orchards within its borders, but kept the owners outside these borders as residents of the West Bank without rights.”

“The extensive use of the Absentee Property Law to build settlements in East Jerusalem is one of the most prominent manifestations of the discrimination practiced by Israel in the occupied city.”

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