Itongadol.- Israel intends to publish tenders for 1,187 new Jewish homes over the pre-1967 lines, the Ministry of Construction and Housing said on Sunday.
The announcement comes in advance the vote by the Ministerial Committee on Prisoner release also on Sunday, to free 26 Palestinian prisoners with blood on their hands, who have been jailed for over two-decades.
Both steps are a prelude to the second round of direct peace talks, which will be held in Jerusalem on August 14 between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
According to the ministry, 793 of the new homes will be in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem. It includes 400 new units in Gilo, 210 in Har Homa and 183 in Pisgat Ze\’ev.
In addition it plans to publish tenders for 394 new homes in West Bank settlement blocs that Israeli believes it will retain in any final status agreement with the Palestinians.
This includes 117 new homes for the Ariel settlement, 149 for the Efrat settlement, 92 for the Ma\’aleh Adumim settlement and 36 for the Beit Illit settlement.
Palestinians have insisted that Israel must halt all West Bank settlement activity and Jewish building over the pre-1967 lines. Israel has refused to cede to this request.
It was understood that settlement activity would continue when a new nine-month negotiating period was announced at the end of July.
It was expected that Israel would time it announcement of new housing to coincide with the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Israel agreed last month in principle to release a total 104 prisoners during the nine-months of negotiations as a gesture to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Housing Minister Uri Ariel (Bayit Yehudi) said the new units would help bring down the cost of housing and that he did not accept any limitations on where new building could happen.
"No country in the world would allow someone else to dictate where it can and where it can not build," he said.
"We will continue to market homes and to build everywhere in Israel, in the Negev, in the Galilee and the in the center of the country to answer the housing needs of Israel\’s citizens. This is the right thing to do for Zionist and economic reasons."
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