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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would continue to build houses throughout Jerusalem, including east Jerusalem where the Palestinians aspire to build the capital for their future state.
Netanyahu was speaking during a special parliament session commemorating "Jerusalem Day," which was created to mark the "reunification" of the city after Israel annexed the eastern part in the 1967 Mideast war.
The status of Jerusalem and Israel's construction in east Jerusalem, home to 300,000 Arabs, is a core issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A law adopted by Israel in 1980 refers to Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital, but Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem is not recognized by the international community.
"For the past 48 years the reunified city of Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel, so it has been and so it would be," Netanyahu said in his speech.
"My approach is simple -- we build in Jerusalem," Netanyahu said, adding that he had in the past several months ordered to push construction in the east Jerusalem neighborhoods of Har Homa and Maale Hazeitim, Gilo, Ramat Shlomo and Pisgat Zeev.
Addressing a rally Sunday, Netanyahu said Jerusalem has always been the capital of Jewish people alone, not of any other nation.
His statement was soon denounced by the Palestinians. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told Palestinian news agency Wafa on Monday that there would be no peace or stability in the Mideast unless the Palestinians can claim east Jerusalem as their capital.
Abu Rudeineh warned that Netanyahu's comments show that the next step is a diplomatic confrontation, with the Palestinians turning to international bodies to thwart the Israeli government's "destructive policies."
Tensions have mounted between Palestinians and Jews in recent months in Jerusalem and the West Bank due to the collapse of the peace process in April 2014. There have been dozens of militant attacks, mostly in Jerusalem and its vicinity, as well as around Israeli West Bank settlements. Enditem
