Israeli occupation authorities have approved more than 1,100 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank, the Peace Now NGO said Thursday, the latest in a raft of such moves in recent months.
The approvals were given on Wednesday by a defense ministry committee with authority over settlement construction.
Some 352 of the homes received final approval, while the others are at an earlier stage in the process, Hagit Ofran of Peace Now, which monitors settlement building, told AFP.
A total of 1,122 settler units were advanced, including seven already existing units given retroactive approval.
According to Ofran, the majority of the approvals are for settlements deep in the West Bank that the Zionist entity claimed it would likely need to evacuate as part of a so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“It’s a part of the general trend that the government is doing, which is to build all over the West Bank, even more in places that Israel would need to evict, and in this way to torpedo the possibility for a two-state solution,” she said.
A shooting that killed an Israeli rabbi on Tuesday in the West Bank city of Nablus led to fresh calls for further settlement building, though the plans approved on Wednesday were already in the works.
Source: AFP
