The Israeli regime has awarded a tender for the construction of 240 illegal settler units in the central area of the occupied holy city of Jerusalem al-Quds amid continued global uproar over Tel Aviv’s disregard for international law through its incessant building up of the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israeli paper Globes reported on Tuesday that the tender had been awarded to two companies bidding as high as 513 million Israeli shekels ($148 million) for five lots of land in the area.
The pending structures include apartments, commercial spaces, offices, and hotels.
The paper specified one of the bidders as the Canada-Israel so-called real estate group.
Jerusalem al-Quds Mayor Moshe Lion, meanwhile, said of the project that "the large number of bids in the tender expresses the confidence real estate companies have in the growing Jerusalem economy.”
The pending structures, he added, “is a major addition to the city and will strengthen and develop its economy."
On Monday, Israel had ordered the demolition of at least 30 Palestinian facilities in the village of Isawiya in al-Quds.
The regime has been emboldened in its violations targeting the occupied territories since the 2016 inauguration of US President Donald Trump, who has taken Washington’s support for Tel Aviv to new levels.
In late 2017, Trump took an incendiary move to recognize al-Quds as “Israel’s capital,” although Palestinians want the occupied city’s eastern part to serve as the capital of their future state.
He re-endorsed the recognition this January while unveiling a highly controversial scheme allegedly seeking to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that is heavily tilted in favor of the occupying regime.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a plan to annex 30 percent of the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, where al-Quds is partly located, under the US scheme that Trump has ironically named the “deal of the century.”
Also on Tuesday, Egypt, France, Germany, and Jordan warned Israel against going ahead with the annexation plan, saying that doing so could have consequences for their bilateral relations with the Tel Aviv regime.