JERUSALEM, July 13, 2026 (WAFA) - The Jerusalem Governorate said on Monday that the approval by the so-called “Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee” of the Israeli occupation municipality in Jerusalem to deposit a new colonial plan to establish around 450 colonial units in the Umm Lison neighborhood, southeast of occupied Jerusalem, represents a new escalation in the policy of imposing colonial facts on the ground.
The Governorate added that the plan targets the establishment of the largest colonial concentration inside a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, in a blatant violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions, particularly United Nations Security Council resolutions 2334 and 478.
The Governorate noted that estimates indicate the project would accommodate nearly 2,000 colonists within an existing Palestinian neighborhood, making it the largest colonial project of its kind inside a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
It added that establishing the project deep within the Palestinian urban fabric demonstrates that its objective extends beyond providing housing for colonists and aims to impose a new geographic and demographic reality that would be difficult to reverse in the future.
The Governorate said the project forms part of a broader colonial system targeting the dismantling of Palestinian geography in southern occupied Jerusalem, alongside the “Arnona Hills,” “Givat Shaked,” “Lower Aqueduct,” and “Givat Hamatos” projects.
It said these projects aim to separate Umm Lison from Jabal al-Mukabbir, isolate Sur Baher, Umm Tuba and Beit Safafa from their natural extension toward Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Beit Jala, restrict Palestinian urban expansion, and surround Jerusalem neighborhoods with connected colonial blocs that impose a new colonial reality on the ground.
The Jerusalem Governorate stressed that Palestinians in Jerusalem are facing an integrated colonial replacement project, rather than separate measures or isolated violations, based on expanding colonization, seizing land, demolishing homes, imposing planning restrictions and isolating Palestinian neighborhoods from their surroundings.
It said these policies aim to reshape the political, legal, geographic and demographic reality of the city, serve the annexation and Judaization project, and undermine the prospects of establishing an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, in violation of international humanitarian law, the Fourth Geneva Convention and relevant United Nations resolutions.
The Israeli anti-settlement rights group Ir Amim reported on the approval of the plan, which would establish around 450 settlement housing units in Umm Lison, southeast of occupied East Jerusalem.
T.R.
