AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime’s far-right cabinet has granted approval for over 7,000 new settler units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, settlement backers and opponents say. The move defies growing international opposition to construction in the occupied territory.
The announcement came just days after the UN Security Council passed a statement strongly criticizing Zionist settlement construction on occupied lands claimed by the Palestinians. The United States, the occupying regime’s closest ally, blocked what would have been an even tougher legally binding resolution, with diplomats saying they had received Israeli assurances of refraining from unilateral acts for six months.
The new approvals took place during a two-day meeting that ended Thursday and appeared to contradict those claims.
Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group that attended the meeting, said a planning committee granted approvals for some 7,100 new units across the West Bank.
The group said the committee scheduled a meeting next month to discuss plans to develop a strategic area east of Al-Quds known as E1.
The United Nations secretary-general has called for an end to the regime’s settlement activities, stressing the illegality of all the occupying regime’s structures in the Palestinian territory.
“All settlement activity is illegal under international law. It must stop,” Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday, addressing the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
“Each new settlement is another roadblock on the path to peace,” the UN chief said, adding that “incitement to violence is a dead end. Nothing justifies terrorism.”
The Zionist regime has built over 230 settlements since its 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, including East Al-Quds. The settlements house more than 600,000 illegal settlers.
Guterres also said, “Our immediate priority must be to prevent further escalation, reduce tensions and restore calm,” noting that, “the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is at its most combustible in years.”