Tel Aviv, December 4 (RHC)-- The Israeli regime is set to spend millions of dollars on construction activities in an illegal settlement in East Jerusalem, an Israeli local council says.

The Jerusalem City Council made the announcement on Wednesday about construction projects in the illegal settlement of Har Homa, located on a hill originally called Jabal Abu Ghneim.

The council said 50 million shekels (USD 12.5 million, 10.2 million euros) would be spent on the projects, which include a park, children's playgrounds, green spaces, and new street lighting.

The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East. More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.

The UN and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were occupied by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.