JERUSALEM, July 13, 2026 (WAFA) – The so-called Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee of the Israeli occupation municipality in Jerusalem approved the depositing of a plan to establish around 450 settlement housing units in the Palestinian neighborhood of Umm Lison in East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli rights group Ir Amim.
The plan, numbered “1049873,” was submitted in 2022 by the Topodia company. However, the approval process remained stalled for more than two years after the so-called District Committee required the expansion of the road leading to the project site.
Ir Amim explained that the delay resulted from the inability of private-sector developers to submit plans for expanding public roads that are not under their ownership, preventing the completion of the required procedures. The Israeli occupation municipality in Jerusalem later joined the project as the entity submitting the plan, allowing the road expansion project to be incorporated into the same plan.
Umm Lison is located between Jabal al-Mukabbir and Sur Baher in East Jerusalem and currently includes around 800 Palestinian housing units, most of which are two- or three-storey buildings.
The new plan calls for buildings of up to 10 floors and the addition of around 450 settlement housing units, which would significantly alter the neighborhood’s urban character and demographic composition.
Ir Amim said the project is the largest of its kind in terms of the number of settlement housing units inside a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, compared with the Maale Zeitim settlement neighborhood in Ras al-Amud, which includes around 120 housing units. It noted that the new project could house nearly 2,000 colonists in the heart of an existing Palestinian neighborhood.
The group said that the involvement of the Israeli occupation municipality in Jerusalem in the project and its intervention to revive the plan after it remained stalled for more than two years reflects a clear political decision to advance one of the largest and most influential settlement projects in East Jerusalem in recent years.
T.R.
