Israel has advanced plans for more than 2,300 illegal settlement homes in the occupied West Bank, the latest in a surge of such approvals since US President Donald Trump took office in 2017, according to an NGO.
Israel’s Higher Planning Committee issued the approvals while meeting over the past couple of days, Peace Now said in a statement on Monday.
Dominic Raab urges Israel to halt settlement expansion, following plans to advance 2,304 units in the West Bank:https://t.co/08iYUnLNJs
— Foreign Office ?? (@foreignoffice) August 7, 2019
The 2,304 housing units are at various stages in the approval process, according to Peace Now, an Israeli group closely monitoring settlement building.
The group said:
“The approval of settlement plans is part of a disastrous government policy designed to prevent the possibility of peace and a two-state solution, and to annex part or all of the West Bank.”
UN slams Israel's 'effective annexation' of West Bank after 2,000 settlement units approvedhttps://t.co/RnJDk2DM9R
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) August 7, 2019
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged before April elections to annex settlements in the West Bank, a move long supported by nearly all legislators in his alliance of right-wing and religious parties.
Annexing settlements on a large-scale in the West Bank could prove to be a death knell for the two-state solution, long the focus of international efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
(Al Jazeera, PC, Social Media)
