A session to discuss “Kadam” settlement project in the neighborhood of Wadi Hilweh in Silwan
A special session will be held on Thursday at the Israeli National Committee to discuss the objections made against the ratification of the “District Committee” on the building of “Kadam Complex- City of David- Old City” which will be implemented in the courtyard of Dung Gate south of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The project which has the Structural engineering figure of 13542 aims at establishing a tourists’ building for the use of scientists and the Department of the Israel Antiquities in addition to building to building conference halls, educational rooms and parking lots for the tourists and settlers. Also, special areas will be allocated for tourists’ purposes, commercial stores and an office for the settlement organization of “Elad”. The settlement project will be established on the lands of the residents of Silwan which were used as farms until Jerusalem was occupied in 1967. After the occupation, the Israeli authorities confiscated the lands and demolished two rooms that were owned by Abdo family and then turned it into a parking lot. In 2003, Elad settlement organization took control of the lands and started planning for the implementation of the settlement project. The carried out continuous excavations in the area of “Dung Gate” and demolished an Islamic cemetery that was 1200 years old in addition to demolishing Umayyad, Ottoman, Byzantine and Roman ruins such as rooms, poles and arches and only left a few of them claiming they are they “ruins of the Second Temple”; note that pa of the project will be designed to show those alleged ruins.
