Watchdog: Israel plans settler homes in strategic area

The new settlements would be in the E1 area, and would further divide the remaining Palestinian parts of the occupied West Bank.

“These NGOs are not breaking any laws at time and are extremely transparent, so the government is inventing new ones to stop them from doing their work”, Avner Gvaryahu, a member of Israeli nonprofit Breaking the Silence, which has been actively campaigning against the Israeli military campaign in the occupied territories, said, in a statement released in November.

A report published Monday by Israeli NGO Peace Now, based on government documents obtained through freedom-of-information laws, claimed the Ministry of Construction and Housing secretly hired architects for the project, without going to public tender.

Israeli construction in E1 would connect the two settlements, surround East Jerusalem completely and sever any geographical contiguity in the West Bank – a serious blow to any hopes of a viable Palestinian state.

The group said the 8,372 units are envisioned for the strategic area called E1. It comes more than a year after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a similar plan for the neighborhood following an global outcry.

Peace Now, an Israeli rights group that promotes a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, described the bill in a statement as a “hate crime against democracy”. The PLO aims to establish a Palestinian state to replace Israel.

The United States, the United Nations and the European Union oppose all Israeli settlement building but have voiced particular concern about plans for E1.

“They must be approved by the minister of defence and then go through the approval process of the planning authority”, the English-language report said. The latest round of US-brokered peace talks collapsed in April 2014.

Peace Now estimates that more than 55,000 housing units are currently in various stages of planning in the West Bank, at a total cost of approximately 330 million shekels (£57 million).

It later annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognised by the global community.

Israelis march from the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim to the controversial West Bank area known … An Israeli soldier was accidentally lightly wounded in the shooting.

Later in Jerusalem, police forces fired tear gas to disperse several dozen protesters who were demanding that Israel hand over the bodies of Palestinians killed in attacks or during clashes with Israeli troops.

Bethlehem has been a focal point for clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian protesters during a three-month wave of violence that has gripped the region.