Israel is pushing forward with controversial plans to build 1,800 new settlement housing units in occupied East Jerusalem in the largest proposed surge in construction in recent years. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. The construction plans include proposals for Jewish buildings, such as an eight-storey yeshiva, in Sheikh Jarrah, which Palestinians regard as being at the very heart of East Jerusalem. For Israel, it was home to a small Jewish community until 1948 when East Jerusalem came under Jordanian rule after the war that saw Israel’s birth. Then in the 1950s several dozen Palestinian refugee families from west Jerusalem – displaced by the same war – were settled there.

Source: The Guardian July 03, 2017 12:29 UTC