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Israel to build new settlement homes in West Bank

October 13, 2019 at 3:30 pm

Israeli settlements near Nablus, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on 10 February 2015 [Nedal Eshtayah/Apaimages]

The Israeli government has advanced plans to build 251 settlement units in the occupied West Bank, according to a Palestinian official on Sunday, Anadolu Agency reports.

The plans were approved by the High Planning Committee of the Israeli Civil Administration, a body responsible for authorising settlement building.

“The committee approved the construction of 146 housing units in Gush Etzion settlement, south of Bethlehem city, while 105 settlement homes will be built in Kfar Al-dad east of the city,” Hassan Bureijia, head of the Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Bethlehem, said in a statement.

READ:Israel has never had any intention of honouring either the 1947 Partition Plan or 1967 borders

Roughly 650,000 Israeli Jews currently live on more than 100 settlements built since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Palestinians want these territories — along with the Gaza Strip — for the establishment of a future Palestinian state.

International law views both the West Bank and East Jerusalem as “occupied territories” and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity there as illegal.