AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime’s municipality in Al-Quds has announced plans to build 400 illegal settlement homes in the occupied town of Abu Dis, to the east of Occupied Al-Quds, reported The Times of Israel.
The plans include expanding the illegal Kidmat Zion settlement, where ten settler families currently live in three buildings purchased by the Ateret Cohanim settler organization.
The town is home to 15,000 Palestinian, the main campus of Al-Quds University and Palestine Authority government institutions.
The West Bank settler population now makes up more than 720,000 people. Settler leaders predicted faster population growth under the new Zionist cabinet.
The United States claims it is “deeply troubled” by the occupying regime’s decision to allow Jewish settlers to return to an abandoned illegal settlement built on private Palestinian land.
U.S. State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller pointed out that the Homesh outpost in the northern West Bank was illegal even under Israeli law because it was built on private Palestinian land. All of the Zionist regime’s settlements and settlers are illegal under international law.
“This order is inconsistent with both former prime minister Sharon’s written commitment to the Bush administration in 2004 and the current Israeli cabinet’s commitments to the Biden administration,” said Miller. “Advancing Israeli settlements in the West Bank is an obstacle to the achievement of a (s-called) two-state solution.”
Furthermore, the spokesman condemned Zionist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for his raid of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Al-Quds. “We are also concerned by the provocative visit to the Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif in Al-Quds and the accompanying inflammatory rhetoric. This holy space should not be used for political purposes, and we call on all parties to respect its sanctity.”
Miller concluded his statement by saying: “More broadly, we reaffirm the longstanding U.S. position in support of the historic status quo at Al-Quds’s holy sites and underline Jordan’s special role as custodian of Muslim holy sites in Al-Quds.”
Storming Al-Haram Al-Sharif in the early morning on Sunday with special guards and under the protection of Zionist troops, far-right extremist Ben-Gvir claimed the occupying regime’s ownership of the Islamic holy site in a video message from the mosque’s courtyard.
This was the second time – the first was on 3 January – that Ben-Gvir has stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque since taking office as a minister in the cabinet of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December.