LONDON: Amana, a prominent Israeli settler organization under British and Canadian sanctions, is advancing plans to build 122 homes in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, according to the Israeli nonprofit Ir Amim.
The development would be the first settlement project in East Jerusalem for Amana, which has helped drive settlement growth across the occupied West Bank for decades, Ir Amim said on Wednesday in a statement received by Arab News.
The proposal would replace existing residential buildings at the historic Shepherd Hotel compound with a larger development rising up to 12 stories, while preserving the hotel building.
Under the proposal, existing residential buildings would be demolished to make way for the larger development.
The project would cover about 1.4 acres in northeastern Sheikh Jarrah. Still in its early planning stages, it is scheduled for an initial hearing before Jerusalem’s Local Planning and Building Committee on Nov. 11.
Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Ir Amim, said the Sheikh Jarrah proposal was part of a broader push by Israeli government bodies, including the Ministry of Construction and Housing and the Jerusalem Development Authority, to build thousands of homes for Israeli settlers rather than the neighborhood’s Palestinian residents.
The projects follow residents’ successful efforts to defend their homes against eviction, he said.
“The sheer number of plans, and the different government agencies and settler groups behind them, show how systematically Israel is working to turn Sheikh Jarrah from a Palestinian neighborhood into an Israeli settlement,” Tatarsky said.
The Shepherd Hotel property, once associated with the mufti of Jerusalem, originally belonged to the Palestinian Husseini family before Israel’s Custodian of Absentee Property seized it.
It was later transferred to Ateret Cohanim, a settler organization active in East Jerusalem, which built several dozen homes beside the hotel. Those homes have never been occupied.
The land has undergone a formal registration process in recent years, with some parcels registered to the custodian and others to a foreign company believed to be linked to Ateret Cohanim.
Amana’s involvement follows decades of settlement activity in the West Bank, where it has benefited from Israeli government funding and close cooperation with state authorities.
Its leader, Ze’ev Hever, known as Zambish, is a former member of the Jewish Underground, a group that carried out “terrorist attacks” against Palestinians in the 1980s, Ir Amim said in its statement.
More recently, Amana has helped finance, plan and support settler-run herding outposts across the West Bank. According to the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, those outposts have taken control of about 247,000 acres in Area C, displacing Palestinian farmers, herders and communities.