EU condemns Israeli settlement activities in occupied lands

The European Union (EU) has strongly denounced Israel’s recent decision to construct several hundred new illegal settler units in the occupied Palestinian lands.

“Despite repeated calls by the international community, Israel is continuing its settlement policy, which is illegal under international law,” the politico-economic bloc said in a statement released on Tuesday.

The EU urged Israel to put an end to its settlement expansion policy and to reverse its recent decision.

The condemnation came on the same day that the United Nations (UN)’s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon sharply criticized Israel for the plan to build the new settler units in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

“This raises legitimate questions about Israel’s long-term intentions, which are compounded by continuing statements of some Israeli ministers calling for the annexation of the West Bank,” Ban said through his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.

He reiterated that “settlements are illegal under international law” and urged Israel “to halt and reverse such decisions in the interest of peace and a just final status agreement.”

Also on Tuesday, the United States slammed Israel’s plans to build new illegal settler units in the occupied Palestinian territories as part of a “systematic” land expropriation policy.

The units would “be the latest step in what seems to be a systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions and legalizations of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution,” US State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

Earlier, the so-called Quartet on the Middle East, which comprises the United States, the EU, the UN and Russia, said Israel should cease the settlement construction and expansion.”

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

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. Palestinians want the West Bank as part of their future independent state, with East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

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