Ramallah: Building permits issued to Palestinians in occupied east Jerusalem account for only 5 per cent of the total number of building permits issued in the occupied city.
According to data published on Thursday but the Israeli daily, the Haaretz, occupation municipality in Jerusalem issued only 188 construction permits for Palestinians compared with 3,228 permits to Jewish colonists in the city.
In the past five years, the municipality issued a total of 11,603 permits, only 878 of which were issued to Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem.
The majority of approved Palestinian permits were issued for the Beit Hanina neighbourhood.
“This is a systematic strategy planned by the Israelis to move Palestinians to Beit Hanina,” said Khalil Tafakji, who heads the Maps Department of the Orient House in occupied Jerusalem.
“Israel wants Beit Hanina to be the capital of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and is working under the table to reallocate existing city services to that area,” he said.
Palestinians want all of occupied east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in 1967, as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Israelis claim occupied Jerusalem as their “eternal and undivided capital”.
Palestinians are not allowed to build unless they are issued official municipal building permits which are rarely issued.
If the permit is approved, Palestinians have to pay approximately $35,000 in building fees for even a small apartment.
Because of the draconian required approvals Palestinians often build illegally to accommodate their expanding families--even if they know their homes will be demolished in the future.
The Israeli regime has demolished 1,815 houses in occupied east Jerusalem since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1994.
