US: Israeli settlement ‘has reached a critical juncture’

The United States told the UN Security Council, on Tuesday, that Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories “has reached a critical juncture.”

The US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, delivered these remarks to the UN Security Council at the monthly meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“US disapproval of settlement expansion goes back decades,” she said. “This is nothing new for us, but the practice has reached a critical juncture, and it is now undermining even the very viability of a negotiated two-state solution,” she stressed.

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About her meetings with Palestinian officials and civilians, she said she “heard stories about Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians, ransacking homes and destroying property in the West Bank, and this is an issue that I discussed extensively with Israeli counterparts.”

She added: “I was told how many Palestinian families fear eviction from their homes because it is nearly impossible to get building permits as settlements expand.”

Last month, Israeli authorities advanced plans for roughly 3,000 settlement units in the occupied West Bank. The Biden administration sharply criticised them.