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News ID: 58506
Publish Date : 14 October 2018 - 21:33

Zionist Regime Approves Construction of New Settler Units

WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime has approved the construction of a residential quarter for illegal settlers in the city of al-Khalil, West Bank, Zionist war minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Sunday.
"The new Jewish quarter in Hebron (al-Khalil) will be constructed for the first time in 20 years. We will build a new neighborhood instead of a military base. We will build 31 apartments, two kindergartens and a nursery instead of barracks for soldiers," Lieberman said in a statement.
According to media reports, the construction of new housing units will require over $6 million of government funding.
Al-Khalil is a city located in the West Bank about 18 miles south of al-Quds.  
Zionist regime officials reportedly approved plans for the construction of 14,864 new settler units in the occupied West Bank two weeks ago irrespective of international outcry against the regime’s land expropriation and settlement expansion policies in the Palestinian territories.
Mayor of the Gush Etzion Regional Council, Shlomo Ne'eman, said that the construction of the new units will triple the number of settler population in the area, which lies directly south of Jerusalem al-Quds and Bethlehem in the central West Bank.
He added that the project includes 1,100 settler units in Rosh Tzurim settlement, located about 20 kilometers south of al-Quds, 600 units in Migdal Oz settlement, some 1,107 in Gevaot settlement, and 1,200 units between Bat Ayin and Migdal Oz settlements.
The project is estimated to cost 18.9 million shekels ($5,195,610).
About 600,000 Zionists live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East al-Quds as its capital.
The last round of Zionist-Palestinian talks collapsed in 2014. Among the major sticking points in those negotiations was Israel’s continued settlement expansion on Palestinian territories.
Trump backtracked on Washington’s support for a "two-state solution” earlier this year, saying he would support any solution favored by both sides.
"Looking at two-state or one-state, I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one both parties like. I can live with either one,” the U.S. president said during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on February 15.

A picture taken on July 24, 2018 shows a view of ongoing construction work at Ramat Shlomo, a settlement in the mainly Palestinian eastern sector of al-Quds.