The Jerusalem Governorate considered that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s laying of the foundation stone for the so-called “Heritage Center” at the site of the historic Jerusalem International Airport in the town of Qalandia, north of occupied Jerusalem, represents an advanced and dangerous step in the settlement project in the city.
اضافة اعلان
The Jerusalem Governorate added in a press statement on Sunday that this step constitutes a grave violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions, foremost among them Security Council Resolution No. (2334), which affirms the illegality of settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and calls for its immediate cessation.
She stressed that this step should not be read as a symbolic measure, but rather as a practical shift from the planning stage to the stage of imposing facts on the ground, reflecting a systematic policy aimed at reshaping the geographical and historical identity of Jerusalem, by seizing one of the most prominent Palestinian sovereign landmarks and turning it into a space that serves the Israeli narrative, in the context of the illegal annexation project and the consolidation of unilateral control over the city.
This development comes as part of a package of decisions taken by the occupation government on May 17 on the occasion of what is called “Jerusalem Day”, which aim to expand and deepen the settlement project within the city, and to re-engineer its political and demographic reality, including the approval of converting the Jerusalem International Airport building into a settlement center with a cultural-ideological character, which aims to re-formulate the historical memory of the place according to the Israeli narrative.
The governorate indicates that the project is not limited to repurposing the building, but goes beyond that to reproducing the historical narrative of the site, by turning it into a platform to establish a settlement narrative that highlights what is called the “history of settlement” and linking the place to Israeli military symbols and figures, including the creation of wings to commemorate political and military figures, in an attempt to replace the Palestinian and Arab memory associated with the site as a sovereign and historical symbol with an alternative narrative.
In parallel, this is accompanied by a large-scale settlement escalation in northern Jerusalem, including strategic infrastructure projects, most notably the waste treatment facility project on Qalandiya lands, which threatens to confiscate hundreds of dunams and displace or isolate dozens of Palestinian families, in addition to promoting the “Atarot” settlement neighborhood project, which aims to create thousands of settlement units, making it one of the largest settlement expansion projects within the city limits.
The Jerusalem Governorate believes that these projects constitute an integrated and interconnected system aimed at reshaping the geographical reality of Jerusalem by creating settlement contiguity between colonial blocs, and in contrast, dismantling the Palestinian geographical extension, especially in the north of the city, and turning it into a buffer zone that prevents any continuous Palestinian urban or demographic connection.
These policies also seek to undermine Palestinian symbols of sovereignty, most notably Jerusalem International Airport, which was considered a landmark of future Palestinian sovereignty, and replace it with a colonial structure that reinforces Israeli control, within a broader project to entrench the concept of "Greater Jerusalem" and link the city to a wide settlement depth that extends to its surroundings.
From a strategic perspective, these measures aim to bring about a systematic demographic change through settlement expansion, land confiscation, demolition, and redistribution of the population space, leading to a reduction in the Palestinian presence and strengthening the settler majority, within a long-term vision to re-engineer the city’s identity in favor of complete Israeli control.
The governorate warned that all these policies fall within an integrated political project aimed at imposing "final facts" on the ground, based on dismantling the Palestinian geography and replacing it with a dense settlement network, thus undermining the possibility of establishing a geographically contiguous Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
The governorate stressed that the continuation of these measures constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, the Fourth Geneva Convention, and relevant United Nations resolutions, and calls for urgent and effective international action, warning that international silence perpetuates the policy of fait accompli and gives the occupation cover to continue changing the identity of Jerusalem and imposing its sovereignty over it by force.
