Jerusalem: Israeli authorities have advanced plans to build nearly 800 homes in West Bank settlements, in a last-minute surge of approvals before the friendly Trump administration leaves office later this week.
COGAT, the Israeli defence body that authorises settlement construction, confirmed the approvals, which drew swift condemnations from the Palestinians.
The anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now said that over 90 per cent of the homes lay deep inside the West Bank, which the Palestinians seek as the heartland of a future independent state, and over 200 homes were located in unauthorised outposts that the government had decided to legalise.
Israel has stepped up settlement construction during President Donald Trump’s term. According to Peace Now, Israel approved or advanced construction of more than 12,000 settlement homes in 2020, the highest number in a single year since it began recording statistics in 2012.
“By promoting hundreds of settlement units, Prime Minister Netanyahu is once again putting his personal political interests over those of the country,” the group said. “Not only will this settlement activity erode the possibility for a conflict-ending resolution with the Palestinians in the long-term, but in the short-term it needlessly sets Israel on a collision course with the incoming Biden administration.”
Netanyahu’s office said last week he would seek approvals for the latest construction projects. They include 100 homes in Tal Menashe, a settlement where an Israeli woman was killed last month in an attack for which a Palestinian man has been charged.
Read the article by Josef Federman in The Age.