In an act of blackmail and fait accompli, the Jerusalem municipality has officially joined the planning process with extremist settler groups, as a prelude to a settlement construction plan in East Jerusalem.

The District Planning and Building Committee will discuss next Wednesday the Jerusalem Municipality's acceptance of two controversial plans aimed at expanding Jewish construction in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods – in Sheikh Jarrah and Umm Lisson/Sur Baher.

Ran Yaron, a spokesman for the anti-settlement organization Ir Amim, revealed that the plan in Sheikh Jarrah includes the construction of a Jewish seminary called Or Simach on private land in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood. Yaron said, "After the municipality was criticized for not serving all residents of the Palestinian neighborhood, the local committee decided to confiscate 40 percent of the land for public use. At the same time, however, it also decided to have the Jerusalem municipality officially join as a sponsor of the plan, giving it significant institutional support and advancing settlement in a neighborhood that has been a source of tension and conflict between extremist settlers and the neighborhood's original Palestinian residents."

The municipality's most obvious involvement, Yaron added, "appears in the Am Lisson plan, which aims to establish 450 Jewish settlement units within an existing Palestinian neighborhood. The only entrance to the Palestinian neighborhood is narrow and does not allow for construction."

The Ir Amim spokesperson continued, "Because the settlers don't own the land, they are unable to widen the road themselves. This is where the Jerusalem municipality intervenes, joining the plan to overcome this obstacle and working to widen the road, effectively facilitating the establishment of a Jewish settlement within the Palestinian neighborhood."

Ir Amim rejects the claim that the municipality's goal is simply to improve infrastructure, stating, "This is the first time the Jerusalem municipality has played the role of sponsor of a settlement plan in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood." An Ir Amim report stated, "This is a purely political move. The Jerusalem municipality could have decided not to widen the road to serve a Jewish settlement project within a Palestinian neighborhood—but it chose the opposite."

She added: "With this, the municipality demonstrates its intention to advance settlement in Palestinian neighborhoods and villages in occupied East Jerusalem - not only by imposing a reality of planning discrimination against Palestinians, but also by exploiting its authority as a local authority to circumvent legal and planning restrictions, with the aim of facilitating the establishment of new Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas originally designated for natural Palestinian expansion, with the aim of strangling these neighborhoods and preventing their development and expansion."

Settlement and land expert Khalil Al-Tafakji said: “The project has been under discussion for a long time by extremist religious groups whose interests have converged with a group of extremist officials in the occupation municipality. Together, they approached the local committee in the occupation municipality to establish a religious institute consisting of nine floors above the ground and three below it, claiming that the land belongs to the “Israel Lands Authority,” which oversees the lands confiscated in 1968 as part of the largest confiscation operation carried out during that period, which included 3,345 dunams.”

Al-Tafakji added to Al-Quds: “The project is huge in a high-rise building in the heart of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which was the scene of settler violence led by the extremist former minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the neighborhood is plagued by settlements and extremist settlers.”

Al-Tafkaji explained: "The occupation municipality granted the settlers a large building percentage in that area - 9,615 square meters on a land area of 4 dunams. He warned that this construction and settlement will harm and cause the expulsion and uprooting of several Palestinian families to the north of this project in order to build a five-story building with 10 housing units for the settlers. To the east of this school, a six-story building will be built to house offices for this huge settlement complex."

He said that this settlement will bring hundreds of settlers almost daily to the heart of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which connects northern Jerusalem, the Old City, and Al-Aqsa Mosque. This will increase friction and violence, he said, as protecting these settlers will require a permanent Israeli military and police presence in this Palestinian neighborhood plagued by settlements and extremist settlers.

Al-Tafakji warned of the danger of what is being plotted and planned for the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, linking settlements there to West Jerusalem, the Hebrew University, Israeli police buildings, and the headquarters of the largest extremist settler organization, "Amona," near the eye hospital.

He said: "A huge project has been proposed on an area of 17 dunams, including 316 settlement units. The occupation municipality aims through this project to link the settlement outposts in the eastern part, passing through the settlement of Kerem al-Mufti, reaching the Mount Scopus area, which includes the Hebrew University and the towers project."

Massive settlement expansion on Mount Scopus land to expand Hebrew University housing, a hospital, and Israeli police and government buildings in Sheikh Jarrah.

Al-Tafkaji stated that the combined goal of these projects is to create a massive settlement bloc that would form a wall dividing the neighborhood into a north and a south, facilitating control over it, and to connect the eastern and western parts of Jerusalem by establishing settlement outposts within Palestinian neighborhoods. This would prevent a geographical and demographic connection between the Old City and the Palestinian neighborhoods east of the city (Shuafat, Beit Hanina, and Qalandia), thus preventing the re-division of Jerusalem into east and west once again. He pointed out that part of these projects (building settlement units, Jewish synagogues, and public buildings belonging to the Israeli government) falls within the no-man's land (the buffer zone between the 1948 and 1967 borders) to erase the so-called Green Line.

Also, the Supreme Planning Council of the Israeli military government/Civil Administration will approve plans for 1,211 housing units in West Bank settlements next Wednesday, including two large plans in the Ma'ale Amos settlement (comprising 561 housing units) that expand the settlement's boundaries northward to connect it with the Efe Nahal settlement. Efe Nahal is considered a separate settlement, but in practice, it constitutes a neighborhood of Ma'ale Amos.

Since December 2024, the Supreme Planning Council has been holding weekly meetings to approve settlement plans. Prior to this date, it held four meetings. The council's weekly meetings not only normalize settlement construction, but also increase it. This is confirmed by the fact that it has approved the construction of 10,167 settlement units since the beginning of 2025, in a period of less than three months.

On Wednesday, the council will also approve construction plans in the settlement of Etz Efraim, which include the construction of 252 units, in the settlement of Mitzpe Shalem - 168, and in the settlement of Beitar Illit - 230 housing units.