Israeli settlement units increase by 70% over past year

The rate of building new housing units inside illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank has increased by 70.4 per cent since May last year, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics revealed on Monday. According to the Times of Israel, work started on 2,758 new units from May 2016 to May this year, compared to 1,619 for the previous 12 months.

The data does not include building in Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel claims is its “undivided” capital city. This status is rejected by most countries in the world as well as the UN.

Read: Number of Israeli settlement building licences at highest since 1992

Settlement watchdog group Peace Now said that the settlement boom coincided with a 2.5 per cent drop in construction starts inside Israel, said the Times of Israel report. “Instead of working to solve the Israeli housing crisis, the government prioritises a radical minority living beyond the boundaries of the state,” said the newspaper. “Such construction continues to distance us from the only way to end the Israeli Palestinian conflict; the two-state solution.”

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More than 600,000 Jewish settlers live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. All of Israel’s settlements are illegal under international law, as are the settlers who live there.