Israel could advance plans this week for thousands more settlement homes in annexed east Jerusalem in defiance of a landmark UN resolution demanding an end to such activity.

The resolution, which passed after the United States took the rare move of abstaining, infuriated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who lashed out at President Barack Obama and vowed not to abide by it.

On Wednesday, a Jerusalem planning committee is to discuss issuing building permits for 618 housing units in the mainly Palestinian eastern sector of the city, according to the Ir Amim NGO, which monitors settlement building.

Jerusalem deputy mayor Meir Turjeman, who also heads the committee, has reportedly also spoken of seeking to advance plans for some 5,600 other units at earlier stages in the process.

On Tuesday he said there were no plans to call off discussions in response to the UN vote. The hundreds of building permits were on the agenda before the resolution was passed.
"We'll discuss everything that's on the table in a serious manner," he said.

And on his Facebook page Turjeman: "I'm not concerned by the UN or anything else trying to dictate our actions in Jerusalem.

"I hope the government and new US administration will give us the momentum to continue and make up for the shortage created over the eight years of the Obama administration," he said of settlement construction.

PHOTO CAPTION

A boy stands at the front gate of a home in the Jewish settler outpost of Amona in the West Bank, during an event organized to show support for Amona, that was built without Israeli state authorization and which Israel's high court ruled must be evacuated and demolished by the end of the year as it is built on privately-owned Palestinian land, October 20, 2016. REUTERS

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