“Netanyahu’s settler government is continuing to take extreme steps aimed at preventing any possibility of a future peace plan, along with causing critical damage to the daily life of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem,” says Hadash MK Ayman Odeh, the Chairman of the Joint List. “This is a move designed to uproot 100,000 Palestinians from Jerusalem and to shatter East Jerusalem into small entities comprised of separate villages and neighborhoods.”

Odeh believes that, in addition to the political implications of such a move, it will hurt the Palestinian residents of the areas being considered for militarization who in any case are living in dire poverty and with unacceptable infrastructure, and for whom East Jerusalem is the center of their lives. Obviously, after such a move their situation will worsen, families will be torn apart and tens of thousands of residents will be cut off from their sources of livelihood.