DM Monitoring
WEST BANK: Israel’s far-right government has approved plans to build thousands of new homes in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, in a move that a Palestinian official decried as part of an “open war against the Palestinian peo-ple”.
The decision comes amid rising violence in the occupied territory and growing United States criticism of Israel’s settlement policies.
The Defence Ministry planning committee that oversees settlement construc-tion approved more than 5,000 new settlement homes on Monday. The units are at various stages of planning, and it was not immediately clear when con-struction would begin. There was no immediate comment from the ministry.
The international community, along with the Palestinians, considers settlement construction illegal and an obstacle to peace. More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem – territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for a future state. “The Netanyahu government is moving forward with its aggression and open war against the Palestinian people,” said Wasel Abu Yousef, a Palestinian official in the West Bank. “We affirm that all settler colonialism in all the occupied Pal-estinian territories is illegitimate and illegal.”
Israel’s government, which took office in late December, is dominated by reli-gious and ultranationalist politicians with close ties to the settlement move-ment. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand settler leader, has been granted Cabinet-level authority over settlement policies and has vowed to dou-ble the settler population in the occupied West Bank.
Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from the Giv’at Ze’ev settlement in the occu-pied West Bank, said the news was “a very big victory for Bezalel Smotrich”. “Normally, to approve settlement expansion, there are six phases. They included things like security considerations, who was going to actually build the settle-ment, political considerations. At each of those stages, MKs – members of par-liament [the Knesset] – and the international community could voice their con-cerns and often they would be slowed down,” Khan said.
“But last week the cabinet, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stream-lined that process completely and handed over almost complete control to Bezalel Smotrich. He’s exercised that control today.”
Netanyahu’s government has made settlement expansion its top priority since he was re-elected in November.
Khan said 900 new buildings had been approved for construction in the illegal Giv’at Ze’ev settlement.
“That is going to make this an even more permanent place than it already is,” Khan said. “Where I’m standing is supposed to be the state of Palestine if a two-state solution is ever agreed. But the frustrating thing for the Palestinians is that these settlements keep getting built. They have been ongoing since the 80s in quite significant chunks of the occupied West Bank.”
