Israel approves 1,000 more settler units in stolen Palestinian lands
Israeli authorities have endorsed a new plan for the construction of at least a thousand new settler units in flagrant defiance of the international outcry against the regime’s illegal settlement expansion activities and land grab policies in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In a statement released on Wednesday, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said 1,000 new settler units would be added to the illegal settlement of Eli, located between the occupied West Bank cities of Nablus and Ramallah.
Netanyahu and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also handles civil administration in the occupied West Bank, “agreed to move ahead immediately” with the planning, the statement said.
The extremist minister has a history of making incendiary remarks against the Palestinians. In February, Smotrich called for the Palestinian town of Huwara in the occupied West Bank to be “wiped out.” Hundreds of armed Israeli settlers then attacked Huwara and the nearby villages and torched dozens of houses and cars.
During a conference in Paris in March, Smotrich denied the existence of Palestine and stood beside a map of Israeli-occupied territories that included the West Bank, Gaza, and most of Jordan.
Elsewhere in the Wednesday statement, the Israeli regime described the latest plan as a response to a recent retaliatory Palestinian shooting that killed four Israeli settlers. The retaliatory attack took place by Palestinians near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, a day after a violent Israeli raid on Jenin that has claimed the lives of seven Palestinians so far, including a 15-year-old girl.
On Sunday, the Israeli regime said that the plans for approval of 4,560 settler units in various areas of the occupied West Bank were included on the agenda of a planning council that meets next week.
The regime has already authorized new settlement outposts and pledged to construct new settler units in the occupied West Bank.
Since taking office in January, Netanyahu's coalition has approved more than 7,000 new units for settlers, mostly deep inside the West Bank. It also changed a law to make it possible for settlers to go back to four settlements that had been evacuated before.
The Israeli regime has exploited Washington’s unconditional backing in the past years to intensify its unlawful colonization of the West Bank and East al-Quds, blatantly disregarding United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which declared settlements in the occupied territories “a flagrant violation under international law.”
The Israeli settler units in the stolen lands are widely condemned by the international community as illegal.
Over 600,000 Israelis occupy more than 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli invasion of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
All Israeli settlements violate international law. The UN Security Council has repeatedly denounced Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.
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