Israeli authorities have approved a plan to build a Jewish religious school on a large plot of land in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, a move condemned by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry as a violation of international law and an attempt to impose new realities on the ground.
The Israeli rights group Ir Amim said on Thursday that a Jerusalem district planning committee officially approved the project earlier this week to construct a Jewish religious school, or yeshiva, known as “Ohr Somayach” in the Palestinian neighborhood.
The organization said objections submitted jointly by Ir Amim and the Sheikh Jarrah community association were rejected.
According to the group, the planned complex will include an 11-story building with housing for hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jewish students, along with residential units for faculty members.
Ir Amim warned that implementing the project “would significantly” increase the presence of occupiers in the area, raising “security concerns for Palestinian residents and altering the character of the neighborhood.”
The plan covers around five dunams (5,000 square meters) at the southern entrance of Sheikh Jarrah, directly opposite the neighborhood’s mosque.
The organization said the location, near existing settlement clusters, “could threaten dozens of Palestinian families with eviction and facilitate the takeover of their homes by occupiers.”
It noted that the land had originally been designated for public use, including educational facilities, but in 2007 the municipality transferred it to the Israel Land Authority to allocate it for the construction of a religious school.
The land was later handed over to the Ohr Somayach institutions without a transparent tender process, which then advanced the current construction plan, it added.
It warned that Israeli authorities and occupier groups are using such mechanisms “to bypass legal protections granted to Palestinian tenants under protected lease arrangements, enabling the displacement of entire families to make way for Jewish settlements.”
– Palestinian condemnation
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned on Friday the approval of the project, rejecting what it described as Israeli measures aimed at “Judaizing Jerusalem” and altering its Palestinian identity.
It said such steps “seek to impose illegal facts on the ground by manipulating the city’s historical and legal status, erasing its identity and distorting facts.”
The ministry reiterated that “Israel, as an occupying power, has no sovereignty over Jerusalem and that sovereignty belongs to the State of Palestine.”
It also described Israeli actions in Jerusalem as “violations of international law, the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, and relevant United Nations resolutions.”
The ministry called on the international community and international organizations to “take a firm stance to compel Israel to comply with international law and legitimacy resolutions.”
Since Oct. 2023, Israel has intensified offensive in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, including killings, home demolitions, displacement of Palestinians and expansion of settlements.
Sheikh Jarrah is among the neighborhoods most targeted by settlement activity in East Jerusalem, with occupier groups having previously taken over several Palestinian homes after evicting their residents.
Palestinians warn that such actions could pave the way for Israel to formally annex the West Bank, effectively undermining the two-state solution envisioned in UN resolutions.
In a landmark opinion in July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The Palestinians regard East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, based on international resolutions that do not recognize Israel’s occupation of the city in 1967 or its annexation in 1980.