Quartet Draft Report: 570,000 ’Israelis’ Are Living in Illegal Settlements

Local Editor

The "Israeli" entity should stop building settlements, denying Palestinian development and designating land for exclusive "Israeli" use that Palestinians seek for a future state, the Middle East "peace" Quartet recommended in a draft of an eagerly awaited report.

The draft report by the Quartet countries sponsoring the stalled Middle East "peace process" - the US, Russia, the European Union [EU] and the United Nations [UN] - said the "Israeli" policy "is steadily eroding the viability of the two state solution."

"This raises legitimate questions about ‘Israel's' long term intentions which are compounded by the statements of some ‘Israeli' ministers that there should never be a Palestinian state," according to the draft report.

UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov briefed the UN Security Council on Thursday on the Quartet report, which he told reporters had been submitted to the Quartet members for final approval and was likely to be released on Friday.

Diplomatic sources said the report carries significant political weight as it has the backing of close "Israeli" ally the United States, which has struggled to revive Middle East "peace talks" amid a fraught relationship between Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama.

The relationship between the right-wing "Israeli" leader and the Democratic US president has yet to recover from deep differences over last year's US-led international nuclear deal with Iran.

The draft report said the "Israeli" apartheid entity had taken for its exclusive use some 70 percent of Area C, which makes up 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and includes the majority of agricultural lands, natural resources and land reserves.

It also added that at least 570,000 "Israelis" are living in settlements. The United Nations and most countries consider the settlements illegal.

"‘Israel' should cease the policy of settlement construction and expansion, designating land for exclusive 'Israeli' use and denying Palestinian development," the draft Quartet report recommends.

It said that only one permit for Palestinian housing construction in Area C was reportedly approved in 2014, while there did not appear to have been any approved in 2015.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team