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Israel plan to settle 1m new Jewish settlers in West Bank

February 4, 2019 at 9:08 am

Israeli settlers gather next to their flag on a rooftop of a house in the West Bank on 12 June 2018 [Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images]

Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin has revealed that the goal of the upcoming Israeli government is to settle an additional one million Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, Quds Press reported yesterday.

The Arabic site said Israeli news website 0404 revealed that Levin made his remarks during a meeting with the Chairman of Samaria Regional Council Yossi Dagan in the occupied West Bank.

“We agreed on reinforcing settlement, accelerating building and creating a situation where settlement does not grow, but develop very fast in order not to meet the needs of the settlers, but to meet the developing settlement,” Levin said.

He added:

Our goal is to settle one million more settlers in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank] and this must be achieved in a very short time.

“Our power on the ground is the basis here. The challenge which faces the upcoming government is the acceleration of settlement and growing settlements. We are here in our land of Israel and this is an inalienable fact.”

Meanwhile, Dagan said: “We are very worried about the slow growth rate in the settlements.”

He added: “At the time where there is a national government, our common mission must be increasing and organising the youth [settlement] communities in order to undermine the creation of an Arab state on the ground.”

According to a statement made by the Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel in May 2014, the number of the Israeli Jewish settlers was 750,000. He said that 400,000 lived in the occupied West Bank and up to 350,000 in occupied East Jerusalem.

Settlements are illegal under international law.

READ: Israel pays $17.5m compensation to illegal Amona settlers