Haaretz newspaper said that Israel’s planning agencies recently approved a plan that could create an unbroken stretch of Jewish construction from Jerusalem to Bethlehem in the West Bank.
According to the newspaper the settlement expansion plan will isolate the Palestinian village of al-Walaja from the West Bank by sandwiching it between the settlement of Har Gilo and the fence that separates Israel from the West Bank.
In late March the Gush Etzion regional council’s planning committee approved a plan to almost double Har Gilo from its current 400 families. The plan calls for building 330 new homes as well as public buildings a gas station parks and other amenities.
The plan is still in its preliminary stages but if it was actually implemented Har Gilo which already hems al-Walaja in from the southeast would hem it in from the southwest as well. To the north the village is hemmed in by the separation wall.
