Israel is keeping Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem shut tight, despite its pledge to reopen them under a recently revived peace blueprint, Palestinian officials said yesterday.
This month, the officials said, Israel renewed its order to close the Orient House, the city ‘s Arab Chamber of Commerce and other heavily symbolic buildings that are a rallying point for the Palestinians’ claims to Jerusalem’s eastern sector as capital of a future state.
Israeli police shut down the institutions in 2001, shortly after the relaunch of the Palestinian uprising against Israel, and has since issued orders every six months renewing the closure.
Azzam Abu Saoud, director of the 72-year-old Chamber of Commerce, said the closure order was extended on Feb. 7 despite the renewal of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel’s commitment to implement the internationally endorsed “road map” peace plan.
At an international peace gathering in Annapolis, Maryland, in November, Israel and the Palestinians agreed to “immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based road map.” Initial obligations require Israel to “reopen the Palestinian Chamber of Commerce and other Palestinian institutions in east Jerusalem.”
“Despite all the expectations the closure order was renewed for another six months,” Abu Saoud told The Associated Press. US consular officials asked for copies of the order, which he provided, he said. The United States Consulate General in Jerusalem had no immediate comment.
Mohammed Mar’i adds from Ramallah:
Israel’s anti-settlement watchdog, Peace Now, yesterday said that Israeli Civil Administration denied 94 percent of the construction requests submitted by Palestinians living in the West Bank under Israeli control in the period between 2000 and 2007.
The left-wing movement said in its report that some 70,000 Palestinians live in Area C, which is under full Israeli control according to the Oslo Peace Accords, and where the Civil Administration, Israeli military body, is responsible for the planning and construction rules.
Peace Now officials said that when the Palestinians have no other choice but to build without receiving a permit, the Civil Administration destroys about 33 percent of the illegal building, after issuing a demolition order.
However, the official added that less than 7 percent of the demolition orders are executed in Jewish West Bank settlements.
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