Israel plans to construct hundreds of new settler units in the occupied East al-Quds, despite international outcry against Tel Aviv's unlawful land grab policies.
The Palestinian Information Center, citing the Tel Aviv regime sources and Israeli media reports, said Thursday that Shemini Properties company will build at least 400 settler units and several commercial structures in Nof Zion settlement in the occupied region.
The report also revealed that the company had already started promoting the project, which will also include hotels and a commercial center.
"The new housing units overlook the most beautiful views of Jerusalem (al-Quds), including the Mount of Olives and the Old City," the company said in its advertising posters.
Tensions have been running high in the occupied territories for months over Israel’s settlement activities and its planned eviction of Palestinian families from their ancestral homes. Many Palestinians have been killed and scores wounded in the Israeli crackdown on protests so far this year.
The Palestinian Authority has recently called on world countries, particularly the United States, to "confront" Israel over the "aggression" that settlement construction poses to the Palestinian people.
Palestinians say they will be keenly watching for a response from US President Joe Biden's administration, which has said it opposes unilateral Israeli settlement construction as an obstacle to the so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Last month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave the Israeli regime one year to withdraw from the decades-long occupied Palestinian territories or face charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
In a message to the 2021 United Nations International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said that the so-called two-state solution was the only way that can guarantee the aspirations of the Palestinian people and put an end to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
All Israeli settlements are illegal under the international law as they are built on occupied land. The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in several resolutions.
Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state, with East al-Quds as its capital. The last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed in 2014. Among the major sticking points in those negotiations was Israel’s continued settlement expansion.