The approval to build more than 5,000 homes on land that the Palestinians claim as their own, in the West Bank, comes amid heightened tensions with the Palestinians in recent days. Despite the fact that the international community considers the measure an “obstacle to achieving peace” in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu welcomes the news and the Israeli media classify the new constructions as a “record” achievement in less than one year.
First modification:
The news was celebrated in Israel but questioned by several Western countries. The government of far-right Benjamin Netanyahu announced the construction of 5,700 homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria, in what represents a new expansion of the settlements that the United States has repeatedly urged to stop.
The authorization of the recent constructions represents a total of 13,082 houses approved this year, if the more than 7,3000 houses at the beginning of the year are added. The data exceeds the previous maximum of 12,159 that correspond to 2020.
Although the units are still in different stages of planning and there is no complete certainty as to when construction will begin, the authorities confirmed that at least 27% of the new homes (1,563) will be concentrated in the Eli settlement, a measure which will allow three settler-occupied posts to be legalized and will turn them into Palegi Maim, HaYovel and Nof Harim neighborhoods.
desde @OriNir_APN in the @nytimes:
“In some recent attacks, Israeli military and police officers have even been documented standing idly by as settlers stormed and burned Palestinian villages.”
Read the whole article👇👇https://t.co/aiXgY5rn1s?
—Breaking the Silence (@BtSIsrael) June 27, 2023
Precisely there, in the Eli settlement, four Israeli settlers died last week after the outbreak of a wave of attacks in retaliation against Jews that set fire to homes and vehicles in the region. A Palestinian was also killed in the attacks.
The deadly riot led the Israeli government to advance the project, for some analysts, the constructions will allow three outposts to gain ground in Eli.
“The Netanyahu government is moving forward with its aggression and open war against the Palestinian people. We affirm that all settler colonialism in all the occupied Palestinian territories is illegitimate and illegal,” said Wassel Abu Yousef, a Palestinian official in the West Bank.
According to information collected by Jewish media, more than 700,000 Israelis now live in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for a future state.
Israel has annexed East Jerusalem and claims it as part of its capital, a claim that is not internationally recognized.
The Jewish nation openly and unhesitatingly asserts that the West Bank is a disputed territory whose fate must be determined through negotiations.
The West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip (from which Israel withdrew in 2005), were seized by Israeli troops in the 1967 war in a joint operation with the Syrian Golan Heights. Two years after Israel withdrew from Gaza, in 2007, the Hamas militant group invaded the territory.
The rejection of the United States to the constructions
The administration of US President Joe Biden has been increasingly direct about what he thinks of Israel’s settlements and his officials have been emphatic in rejecting these projects.
Begining of June, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the construction “an obstacle to the horizon of hope that we seek” in a speech before the pro-Israeli lobby group AIPAC.
And this Monday, June 26, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the United States is “deeply concerned by the alleged decision by the Israeli government to advance planning for more than 4,000 settlements in the West Bank. We are equally concerned by reports of changes to Israel’s settlement management system that expedite settlement planning and approval.”
This same week, the United States assured that it would stop the transfer of funds to Israeli institutions for scientific and technological research projects in the West Bank. The decision restored a longstanding policy that had been canceled by the Trump administration in favor of the settlements.
For the UN special coordinator for the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, the recent events are “truly alarming”, a statement that he expressed in the new report to the UN Security Council.
“Large numbers of settlers, many armed, have systematically attacked Palestinian villages, terrorizing their neighbors, sometimes with close proximity and/or support from Israeli security forces,” he said.
With AP, EFE and local media.
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