(ANSA) - TEL AVIV, 25 NOV - The Building Commission of Jerusalem has approved the initial plans for the construction of a new district north of the city beyond the pre-1967 armistice lines with about 9,000 houses mostly destined for the Orthodox Jewish population. The location is that of the old Atarot airport, once a Jerusalem stopover, squeezed between the Palestinian suburb of Kafr Akab and the refugee camp of Qalandiya right next to Ramallah, the administrative capital of the West Bank. The site - the airport closed for good in 2000 after the outbreak of the Second Intifada - was indicated by Trump in his 'Plan of the Century' as an area destined for the Palestinian tourism sector. Already in the days, in anticipation of the decision, an EU diplomatic delegation to thePalestinian National Authority (PNA) visited the site and the representative of Europe SvenKuhn von Burgsdorff denounced that the move by the Jerusalem Building Commission - still in its infancy - "endangers the 2-state solution" and separates Jerusalem from the West Bank.
The plan still has to go through subsequent approvals before eventually being implemented.
(HANDLE).
