Agencies – The Zionist entity announced on Monday that it plans to build 700 new houses in settlements in East Jerusalem.

According to the Zionist daily Haaretz, government spokesman Mark Regev said the Zionist Housing Ministry invited contractors to bid on the construction of 198 housing units in the settlement Pisgat Ze’ev, 377 in Neve Ya'akov and 117 in Har Homa.

The Zionist entity occupied East Jerusalem along with the rest of the West Bank in 1967. It later annexed the city and regards it as an absorbed part of the Zionist entity. Palestinians and the international community never recognized Zionist sovereignty in the east of the city.

In 1967 the Zionist entity also expanded Zionist municipal boundaries, such that many of what they term ‘East Jerusalem settlements’ actually lie deep in the West Bank. Har Homa for example is situated closer to Bethlehem than Jerusalem.

"We make a distinction between the West Bank and Jerusalem. Jerusalem is our capital and remains such," Regev said on Monday, as quoted by Haaretz.

House demolitions

In a related warning on the Zionist entity's plans for Jerusalem, Fatah official Hatem Abdul Qader said on Wednesday that the Zionist entity is planning to bulldoze 900 Palestinian houses in the city.

“The plan was given to a private firm to demolish the houses and building housing units and settlements in the Old City in Jerusalem," Abdul Qader told Voice of Palestine radio.

"The plan is based on reducing the Palestinian presence in Jerusalem," he added.

Haaretz also reported on Sunday that the Zionist entity is considering expropriating privately-owned Palestinian land in order to build a sewage treatment facility that would serve the West Bank settlement of Ofra.

This came in a communiqué from the Zionist entity Prosecutor's Office to the High Court of Justice on Sunday.

The Zionist human rights group Yesh Din is petitioning the court against the treatment plant.

"The fact that today the entity is trying to legitimize the land theft ... by seizing land retroactively, for the sake of a settlement that was not long ago classified as 'the largest illegal outpost in the West Bank,' is nothing short of an outrage," said Shlomo Zacharia, one of the lawyers representing Yesh Din, as quoted by Haaretz.