Ramallah, June 24 (IANS) Palestine has slammed Israel’s new settlement projects in the West Bank, saying the move is a disregard for international legitimacy.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said on Friday in a press statement that “The Israeli government has given the green light to Israeli settlement associations to establish dozens of illegal random settlement outposts in various areas of the occupied West Bank,” which is an “official Israeli effort to accelerate annexation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
Israeli settlers have established no less than seven new random settlement outposts since Thursday in the West Bank, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Friday.
“Accelerating settlement leads to closing the door permanently to the opportunity to revive the peace process and implement the two-state solution principle,” the Foreign Ministry statement said.
It added that “the measure is an official Israeli disregard for international legitimacy and its resolutions, international law and Israel’s obligations as an occupying power towards the lands it occupies”.
The Security Council Resolution 2334 issued in 2016 reiterated its demand that Israel ceases all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, Xinhua news agency reported.
Israel took control of the West Bank in 1967 and established dozens of settlements there.
The settlement issue is the most prominent aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and one of the main reasons for halting the last peace negotiations between the two sides in 2014.
–IANS
int/khz/
