The Jerusalem Municipality bulldozers started on Wednesday bulldozing the lands between Ramot and Ramat Shlomo settlements north of Occupied Jerusalem in the villages of Shuafat Lifta Beit Hanina and Beit Iksa in a prelude for the establishment of a sport stadium platforms playgrounds parking lots and squares for the Jewish Olympic Games Maccabiah.
Tenders were announced before the Jewish holidays during the past two weeks in preparation for these games which will be launched on the 50th anniversary of the occupation of Jerusalem from 1st June to the end of July 2017.
Khalil al-Tafakji the head of the Mapping Department at the Arab Studies Society said that the Jerusalem Municipality announced tenders specially for the Maccabiah Games to bulldoze the Palestinian lands located between street No. 443 and Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road and assigned them to 16 companies including Arab ones.
Tafakji told the PIC that the Jerusalem Municipality is planning this year to organize the Maccabiah Jewish Games similar to the Olympic Games in which Jews from all around the world participate in all sport fields in Occupied Jerusalem under the claim that it is the “eternal capital” of Israel. He affirmed that the Municipality allocated one billion shekels for achieving this goal.
According to Tafakji preparations for the Maccabiah are being launched by several ministries and institutions led by the Israeli Jerusalem Committee headed by premier Benjamin Netanyahu which has received an open budget from several ministries overseeing the issuance of tenders and the implementation of projects.
The mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat said that the completion of the series of the projects listed constitutes a great challenge to his municipality which aims to turn Jerusalem into a sports capital. The Maccabiah Games are held every 4 years and this year 11000 athletes from 69 countries in addition to 2000 Israeli athletes are participating.
Tafakji pointed out that the Maccabiah projects are closely linked to other settlement projects on the lands of Shuafat Lifta Beit Hanina and Beit Iksa including building 750 settlement units close to the highway in addition to expanding Ramat Shlomo settlement with 1400 settlement units on the lands of Shuafat.
He affirmed that the project linking Ben-Gurion Airport in Jerusalem with Tel Aviv stretches through a tunnel in the heart of Beit Iksa village where 5 settlement projects are being built and aimed at removing the Green Line and promoting the so-called “the unification of Jerusalem” under Israeli sovereignty.
