Israel to build 1000 homes in East Jerusalem Contracts for 300 homes in Ramot signed and 797 plots to be offered for sale in Gilo. ISRAEL is preparing to build more than 1,000 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem as the United States strives to revive dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, an NGO says. Danny Seidemann, director of Jerusalem settlement watchdog Terrestrial Jerusalem, said that contracts for 300 homes in the north-eastern settlement of Ramot were signed and another 797 plots were to be offered for sale in the southern Jerusalem settlement of Gilo, near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Both are in mainly-Arab areas of the holy city which were occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War then annexed, in a move still unrecognised by the international community. Seidemann said that the plans were approved last year, before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quietly ordered a settlement freeze, but the latest steps in their implementation were leaked to media by the office of hard line Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel. Ariel is himself a settler and number two in the pro-settlement Jewish Home party, which joined Netanyahu's coalition government in the wake of January's general election. Although the freeze was never officially confirmed, NGOs said that Netanyahu didn't want to be seen as hampering US Secretary of State John Kerry's initiative to breathe fresh life into moribund peace efforts. "There is a de facto freeze at the moment, there have been no new units since the elections," Seidemann said. He said that by publicising the fact that building approved in the past is moving ahead Ariel was seeking to force Netanyahu into either giving his blessing or halting the work. The news came less than a week after Kerry's latest round of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on his fourth visit to the region since February. On Sunday he unveiled a $US4 billion ($A4.17 billion) US plan to boost the Palestinian economy but it met with a cool response, with an adviser to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas saying that the leadership would "not offer political concessions in exchange for economic benefits." Suspected Jewish extremists carried out a string of attacks against about 20 Palestinian cars in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israeli police and witnesses said earlier on Wednesday.