Israeli authorities have decided to approve the construction of a new synagogue and school in East Jerusalem (al-Quds) on occupied Palestinian land.

The erection project will be carried out in the Gilo settlement on the land seized from its Palestinian owners just before planning for the construction started in 1995, Israel’s army radio said on Tuesday.

The plan is actually finalized, although it still requires final approval from the city’s planning commission, an act of "mere formality, " according to the committee’s chairman Kobi Khalon.

The decision can cause an explosion of anti-Israeli sentiment among the Palestinians, who view the move as the realization of earlier warnings by their leaders that the Israeli regime plans to Judaize al-Quds.

Tel Aviv’s reopening of Hurva synagogue, a few hundred meters from the highly revered al-Aqsa Mosque compound, sparked outrage across the Palestinian territories and ignited clashes between Palestinian protestors and Israeli troops in al-Quds.

Claiming al-Quds as its "eternal and indivisible" capital, the Tel Aviv regime annexed the city’s eastern part — which hosts a number of sites sacred to Islam, Christianity as well as Judaism — following the 1967 six-day war, a move that has never been recognized by the international community.

The Palestinians demand al-Quds as the capital of their future Palestinian state and have been calling for an end to Israeli settlement expansions and other violations in the occupied city.

(Press TV)