«Israel» Approves 464 Settlement Units in W Bank

Local Editor

The "Israeli" apartheid regime approved the construction of 285 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank, according to the settlement watchdog Peace Now.

The US said it was "deeply concerned" and warned that settlement expansion posed a "very serious and growing threat" to what it called peace with the Palestinians.

About 570,000 "Israeli" settlers live in more than 100 settlements built since "Israel's" 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds [Jerusalem]. The settlements are considered illegal under international law.

The settlement watchdog reported that the latest planning decision by the "Israeli" military-run Civil Administration in the West Bank meant 2,623 units at settlements had been approved so far this year. The figure includes 756 illegally-built units that have been retrospectively "legalized".

A senior US official told the AFP news agency that settlement expansion - as well as continuing demolitions of Palestinian homes - "fundamentally undermines the prospects for a two-state solution and risks entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict".

"We are particularly troubled by the policy of retroactively approving illegal outposts and unauthorized settlement units," the official said.

"These policies have effectively given the government's green light for the pervasive advancement of settlement activity in a new and potentially unlimited way."

On Tuesday, the "Israeli" regime reacted angrily to similar criticism of its settlement activities by the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov.

"It is difficult to read in these actions a genuine intention to work towards a viable two-state solution. This appears to reinforce a policy, carried out over decades, that has enabled over half a million 'Israelis' to settle in territory that was occupied militarily in 1967," he told the UN Security Council.

A spokesman for "Israeli" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Mladenov of distorting history.

There had been numerous rounds of talks between the "Israeli" regime and the Palestinians since the early 1990s, with the last collapsing in acrimony in 2014.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team