Hamas spokesperson in Jerusalem Mohammad Hamada said that the Israeli occupation’s approval of a colonial settlement scheme that would steal tens of dunams of the lands of Beit Safafa town is a crime added to its criminal record against Jerusalem.

Such illegal schemes are aimed to Judaize it, displace its residents, and dismember it.

Hamada stressed that the Israeli occupation takes advantage of the international silence and the US support to pass its settlement plans, disregarding all calls to stop this crime that violates international humanitarian law.

The so-called "District Planning Committee" in Jerusalem has approved plans to build 473 new settlement units in the illegal "Givat Shaked colonial settlement, south of occupied Jerusalem, known as the "TPS 969162" plans, which will result in the annexation of 38 dunums of land located in Sharafat neighbourhood in the northwestern part of the Palestinian neighbourhood of Beit Safafa, he added.

Hailing the Palestinian citizens of the occupied West Bank, the Hamas spokesperson confirmed that the steadfast and resilient Palestinian people will resist the Israeli occupation's colonial settlement expansion scheme and confront the Israeli occupation forces and settlers' attacks against lands and sanctities with all means possible.