OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s government on Sunday approved plans to instal a cable car to Jerusalem’s Old City, a project likely to anger Palestinians and much of the international community.

The plan would see a former railway station in west Jerusalem linked by cable car to the Old City in East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.

It would stop at the Dung Gate entrance to the Old City near the Western Wall, traversing some 1.4km.

Current estimates say the cable car will begin operating in 2021.

At a special meeting held at the Western Wall, the Cabinet approved the first phase of the plan expected to cost some 200 million shekels ($56 million), a tourism ministry statement said.

The meeting was held at the site — one of the holiest in Judaism — to mark Israel’s occupation of the Old City 50 years ago in the Six-Day War.

The status of occupied Jerusalem is among the most sensitive issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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