GAZA CITY (Dispatches) – Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on Saturday called for stepping up popular resistance against Zionist settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
“The occupation government’s approval of a settlement scheme that includes 31 settlement plans in the West Bank proves the extremism of the [Naftali] Bennett’s cabinet by continuing with the policy of settlement intrusion, land grab, and the uprooting of our people,” Hamas spokesman Abdul-Latif Al-Qanou said in a Twitter post.
Al-Qanou called for “the escalation of the intifada and the expansion of the popular resistance throughout the West Bank to confront the occupation and its settlement projects.”
On Wednesday, the Zionist regime’s new cabinet approved a scheme for the construction of 31 new buildings in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The move marked the first time the Bennett-led cabinet, which came to power on June 13, approved construction in illegal settlements in the West Bank.
About 650,000 Zionist settlers reside in 164 settlements and 116 outposts across the occupied West Bank, according to the occupying regime and Palestinian estimates.
Under international law, all settlements in the occupied territories are illegal.
The United Nations said the Zionist regime was flagrantly violating international law by expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds, urging the regime to halt their enlargement immediately.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland reported on the implementation of a 2016 Security Council resolution that declared settlements have “no legal validity”. The global body demanded a halt to the settlement expansion, which jeopardizes the possibility of a future Palestinian state.
Wennesland said in a briefing to the council on Guterres’ 12-page report that he was “deeply troubled” by the occupying regime’s approval of a plan to add 540 housing units to the Har Homa settlement in East al-Quds as well as the establishment of settlement outposts. He said that is “illegal also under Israeli law”.
“I again underscore, in no uncertain terms, that Israeli settlements constitute a flagrant violation of United Nations resolutions and international law,” the UN envoy said.
West Bank tensions have reached boiling point as Zionist settlers continue their expropriation of Palestinian land.