Israel set to approve 4,000 settler units in occupied West Bank | Occupied West Bank News

If approved, it will be the largest development of illegal settlement plans since US President Joe Biden took workplace.

Israel is ready to advance plans for the development of 4,000 illegal settler houses in the occupied West Bank, the inside minister has said.

Interior minister Ayelet Shaked, a staunch supporter of settlements, wrote in a Tweet on Friday that a planning committee would convene next week to approve 4,000 houses, calling development within the West Bank a “primary, required and apparent thing”.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that the Civil Administration, a navy body, would meet Thursday to advance 1,452 units, and that one other 2,536 units can be permitted by defence minister Benny Gantz.

Israeli settlements are fortified, Jewish-only housing complexes constructed on Palestinian land in violation of worldwide legislation. Between 600,000 and 750,000 Israeli settlers dwell in at the least 250 illegal settlements within the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.

If approved, it might be the most important advancement of settlement plans since US President Joe Biden took office. The White House is opposed to settlement progress because it further erodes the potential for an eventual two-state answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

US ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides was quoted by local media on Friday as saying the Biden administration has repeatedly made it clear to Israel through the previous week that it strongly opposes any further settlement expansion exercise.

The transfer comes forward of a deliberate go to by Biden to Israel, slated for June.

Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist and founding father of the Youth In opposition to Settlements NGO, advised Al Jazeera that the approval of 4,000 new settler houses would mean “extra Israeli settler violence in the direction of Palestinians in the West Bank” and extra “restrictions and apartheid polices” to be imposed on the Palestinians.

“It is an indicator that Israel is violating worldwide law with impunity and without accountability, and it exhibits that the worldwide community is utilizing double standards with Israel,” Amro said.

He added the move also makes Palestinians really feel “extra upset and hopeless” in the direction of the Biden administration.

Israel accredited the construction of 3,000 settler properties in October regardless of another US rebuke. Authorities have, however, paused some particularly controversial projects in the wake of strong US opposition.

Israeli settlement expansion in the West Financial institution and East Jerusalem has continued underneath every Israeli government since Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Center East conflict.

However, building accelerated in the previous few years underneath former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with a big boom throughout Trump’s US administration, which Palestinians accused of getting a powerful pro-Israel bias.

Settler attacks towards Palestinians and their property are a regular occurrence within the West Financial institution, home to nearly three million Palestinians.

The Palestinian management desires the West Bank as part of a future state and views the unlawful settlements as a serious obstacle to any potential deal.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT).

Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued a policy of creating and sustaining a “Jewish demographic majority”, Amnesty stated. Israel additionally workouts full control over land and resources to profit Jewish Israelis, including those in illegal settlements.

Further reporting by Farah Najjar.