JERUSALEM - The Jerusalem municipality will soon announce a plan to freeze 70 percent of demolition orders in the mostly Arab eastern sector of the city, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported on Monday.

The city will negotiate compensation terms for the remaining 30 percent, the newspaper said, adding that the new plan was motivated by pressure from Washington and the legal and technical difficulties of carrying out the
orders.

A spokesman for Jerusalem's mayor Nir Barkat declined to comment on the report.

Since taking office in November, Barkat had vowed to crack down on illegal construction in the city, including east Jerusalem, whose fate is one of the thorniest issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The city's Palestinian residents have long accused the Israeli-run municipality of discriminating against them and making it virtually impossible to get legal permits for new homes or extensions to existing ones.

As a result, Arab residents have built thousands of illegal structures in recent decades and Israel has issued demolition orders and destroyed dozens of houses each year.

The threatened demolitions have raised tensions in the eastern half of the city, with Palestinians holding regular protests and filing court cases.

The United States has also criticised the threatened evictions, saying they have a negative effect on the Middle East peace process.

Israel considers the entire Holy City to be its "eternal undivided" capital, including east Jerusalem, which it seized and annexed during the 1967 Six Day war.

The international community has never recognised its claim to east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.

Around 270,000 Palestinians live in east Jerusalem alongside around 190,000 Israeli Jews.