Esat Firat
14 October 2020•Update: 14 October 2020
JERUSALEM
Palestinian authorities on Wednesday condemned Israel's plan to build more than 2,000 new settlement homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.
The plan is against all international conventions and laws, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement.
Rudeineh said Israel continues to build and expand Jewish settlements in the region to "steal" Palestinian land in the shadow of the silence of the international community and "unrequited normalizations."
He called on the international community to put more pressure on Israel as he highlighted that the Donald Trump administration in the US gives unconditional support to Israel’s occupation and illegal activities.
Israel approved 2,166 new settler homes Wednesday in the occupied West Bank, according to TV7 Israel News.
In recent weeks, Israeli settler leaders have protested Netanyahu’s failure to push the Supreme Council for Planning and Building to approve settlement projects, considered illegal under international law.
Peace Now, a non-governmental Israeli movement, said more than 650,000 settlers are living in 266 illegal settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The approval of the new homes came after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed US-brokered normalization agreements with Israel on Sept. 15 at the White House, ignoring Palestinian rejection.
Israel, in return, pledged to suspend plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
Palestinians have decried the agreements as a betrayal of their struggle against decades-long Israeli occupation.
Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1967.
*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz
