As part of a recent decision to reject almost all Palestinian building requests, Israel’s planning and building committee in Occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem) turned down some 20 applications submitted by Palestinians to obtain residential construction permits.

According to Haaretz newspaper, the Israeli committee intends to rule out almost any future Palestinian construction in east Al-Quds (Jerusalem), whose native residents face a serious housing shortage due to years of deliberate neglect of Palestinian neighborhoods, including the lack of any zoning plans and infrastructure in these areas.

One of the most difficult obstacles to Palestinian construction in Al-Quds (Jerusalem) is the fact that ownership of about 90 percent of land in the eastern part of the city is not registered under anyone’s name.

Consequently, Palestinian residents cannot prove property ownership and therefore they cannot submit applications for construction permits. 

However, the Israeli authorities wants to exploit such a situation to refuse all applications for construction permits submitted by Palestinians who do not possess ownership documents. 

Such a problem had been dealt with in past decades with the “mukhtar protocol.” Anyone wanting to build on their land must collect signatures of consent from mukhtars, who are local leaders or clan heads, Haaretz noted.