News / Palestine

Israel to construct over 100 new settler units in West Bank

Monday, 20 August 2018 12:58 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 20 August 2018 4:21 PM ]

A picture taken on July 24, 2018, shows a view of ongoing construction work at Ramat Shlomo, a Jewish settlement in the mainly Palestinian eastern sector of Jerusalem al-Quds. (Photo by AFP)

Israeli officials have approved plans for the construction of more than a hundred new settler units in the central part of the occupied West Bank, defying the international outcry against the Tel Aviv regime’s land expropriation and settlement expansion policies in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Hassan Breijieh, a member of the anti-wall and anti-settlements committee in Bethlehem, said the so-called Israeli Civil Administration Higher Planning Council had initially endorsed plans for building 40 new housing units in the Efrat settlement, but later increased the number to 106 following protests by extremist local settlers.

Breijieh added that Israeli military forces had distributed notices among Palestinian landowners, informing them of the plans.

Less than a month before US President Donald Trump took office, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2334, calling on Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem” al-Quds.

Israeli officers secure a bulldozer demolishing structures in the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar, east of Jerusalem al-Quds in the occupied West Bank, on July 4, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

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

The last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed in 2014. Among the major sticking points in those negotiations was Israel’s continued settlement expansion on Palestinian territories.

Trump backtracked on Washington’s support for a “two-state solution” earlier this year, saying he would support any solution favored by both sides.

“Looking at two-state or one-state, I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one both parties like. I can live with either one,” the US president said during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on February 15.

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