JERUSALEM, June 13: Israel on Friday announced its second settlement project in occupied east Jerusalem in a month, enraging Palestinians just ahead of a US visit aimed at rescuing the stalemated peace process.

The Jerusalem municipality confirmed a report in the Haaretz newspaper that the green light had been given for 1,300 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied and annexed east of the city.

The houses will be built in Ramat Shlomo in the northern part of the Holy City where there are already 2,000 settler homes, Haaretz reported.

The paper said the decision to go ahead was taken on Tuesday by the Jerusalem urban planning commission which reports to the interior ministry.

Haaretz called it one of the most ambitious expansion plans for settler homes in east Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later annexed in a move not recognised by the international community. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat expressed outrage at the decision.

“We firmly condemn this project which reveals the Israeli government’s intention to destroy peace,” Erakat said.

“The international community must make Israel stop its settlement activity if it wants to give peace negotiations a chance.” The new project will nearly double the number of homes in Ramat Shlomo.

“These 2,000 housing units intended for young couples and those currently in poor housing are an absolute necessity,” Jerusalem municipality spokesman Gidi Schmerling said in a statement.

The settlement requested permits for close to 2,000 units, but so far 1,300 have been approved, Schmerling added.

On June 2, after Israel announced plans to construct 884 more houses in east Jerusalem, the White House warned that building such settlements “exacerbates the tensions” with the Palestinians.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due in Israel late on Saturday for a two-day trip aimed at injecting momentum into the moribund peace process revived to great fanfare in the United States last November.

Little progress has been made so far, with the thorny settlements issue one of the major bones of contention as well as continuing violence in and around the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli government wants to retain large settlements in the occupied West Bank in the event of a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Despite international calls to freeze all settlement activity in a bid to speed up peace efforts, Israel has in recent months announced major construction projects in east Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank.

In a graphic illustration of the sensitivity of the issue, the BBC has broadcast video footage of what Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem says was an attack by masked Jewish settlers on a Palestinian shepherd.

Police on Friday said an investigation into the alleged attack has been launched, but that they had yet to make arrests.

The footage shows men brandishing baseball bats who are alleged to have beaten the elderly shepherd and his wife outside the occupied West Bank town of Hebron.—AFP