Israel approves plans to build settlement roads in East Jerusalem

Israel approved, on Thursday, several plans to build settlement roads in the vicinity of the Occupied city of Jerusalem, Israel Channel 7 reported.

The Israeli channel said the Civil Administration has approved the construction of Road No. 45, which will bypass Qalandia refugee camp and confiscate thousands of Palestinian-owned lands.

According to the channel, the road will link the Mukhmas Roundabout on Street No. 60 and the settlements of Migron and Kochav Ya’akov directly with Street No. 443, south-west of Ramallah, adjacent to villages north-west of Jerusalem.

The Israeli authorities have also approved the construction of a road linking Street No. 1, west of Jerusalem, with Street No. 60 and the southern neighbourhoods of the city.

Channel 7 indicated that the street aims to bypass the town of Sur Baher, east of Jerusalem, by confiscating thousands of agricultural lands.

For his part, the far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the approval of the road projects aims to facilitate the movement of settlers.

On 30 March, the United Nations Human Rights Council discussed a report on settlements and their repercussions on the Palestinian people’s rights, presented by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk.

In his report, Turk emphasised that “the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, increased from 520,000 to more than 700,000 over the past decade”.

The report documented the existence of a relationship between Israeli settlement expansion and settler attacks against Palestinians during the past decade, noting that the United Nations has verified 3,372 incidents of settler violence, which resulted in the injury of 1,222 Palestinians.

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