Watchdog says Israel plans more West Bank settlement homes

“As follows from a number of media reports the Israeli authorities are considering plans for building about 8,300 homes in an area lying between Eastern Jerusalem and the Maale-Adumim settlement (so-called zone E1) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank”, the Foreign Ministry said.

The announcement has caused considerable concern that it would effectively prevent a contiguous Palestinian state.

With its actions, Israel is deliberately defying the global rule of law and worldwide consensus.

Israeli watchdog Peace Now reported Sunday that the Ministry of Housing began “quietly” planning for 8372 housing units in the E1 area in November 2014, hiring architects to work on numerous plans that had been cancelled.

According to the officials, the Housing Ministry portfolio doesn’t hold any decision-making powers on the occupied territories, and has no authority to either build or plan to build any settlements on their own.

The army says the Palestinian driver barreled into the soldiers as they were patrolling a road near the West Bank city of Nablus.

APN urges the Obama administration to reiterate, strenuously, its objection to settlements in these locations – and anywhere else in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – and seek assurances from the government of Israel that it has no intention of building there.

The statement, however, only referred to Ariel’s plans for construction in E1, failing to mention other projects, over 25,000 of which have been planned to take shape east of the Israeli West Bank Barrier. They say that Israeli settlement construction on the lands they claim is a sign of bad faith. Settlement expansion continues to be a major obstacle in the peace process. But an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, stressed the E1 plan is hypothetical. “If it wasn’t significant, why do it at all”, she said.

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