Israeli Housing Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said this week that some 2,300 housing units would be sold in the controversial Har Homa development outside Jerusalem by the end of the year or in early 1996.
He expressed the hope that another 4,000 units slated for the second and third stages of construction would also be sold.
Ben-Eliezer denied accusations that the development, which lies across the Green Line, was being built primarily on land expropriated from Arabs.
He said 80 percent of the land was owned by Jews, who purchased it during the 1940s.
The minister also said the government would initiate building projects for Jerusalem’s Arab population.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
