Some 250 activists set up tents Friday on a highly disputed plot of land in the West Bank to protest Israeli plans to build Jewish settler homes there, which could cut off Palestinians from Jerusalem.
Palestinian activists called their encampment Bab al-Shams, Arabic for "Gate of the Sun."
Israel wants to build some 3,000 new homes in E-1, a strip of land between Jerusalem and the large West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim. The plan prompted international condemnation. Palestinians say it would deprive them of a contiguous state.
The activists said they would remain there until the land's Palestinian owners are allowed to build homes there.
Peace talks have been frozen since September 2010, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' demand to extend a 10-month partial moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank.
Netanyahu says he wants to negotiate without conditions.