Occupied Jerusalem — Israeli authorities on Sunday approved building permits for 566 settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem, the city›s deputy mayor said.
Meir Turjeman told AFP that city officials approved the plans that had been previously postponed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request in the wake of a UN Security Council resolution in December against Israeli settlement building.
Turjeman said plans for some 11,000 other homes were also in process in east Jerusalem, though he did not say when they could be moved forward.
The new permits are for homes in the settlement neighborhoods of Pisgat Zeev, Ramot and Ramat Shlomo, according to Turjeman, who also heads the planning committee that approved them.
“The rules of the game have changed with Donald Trump’s arrival as president,” he said.
“We no longer have our hands tied as in the time of Barack Obama. Now we can finally build.”
‘New US envoy to live in Jerusalem’
The newly appointed US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has stated that he will be living in occupied Jerusalem and not in the US envoy house in Herzliya.
According to Israeli media, the new ambassador from the Trump administration said that he prefers to live in a small apartment in occupied Jerusalem than live in the house in which US ambassadors have lived over the years.
In a report by the Israeli daily newspaper, Ynet, Friedman said he will arrive in Israel by the end of February and intends to live in occupied Jerusalem whether the administration decides to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem or not.
To her part, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and the right wing Likud party member Tzipi Hotovely said that she is glad to have Friedman as an ambassador, since him and the US administration are always supportive of Israel and stand on its side through all of its “battlers”, especially on the settlement files.
Regarding the embassy move, Hotovely said she hopes that the presidential pledge will come true despite the rage against it in the Arab world, saying that it will be a “courageous” move by the US administration if it does happen. — Agencies
