Illustration of the West Bank region, Palestine. (Wikimedia Commons/Almonroth)
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JAKARTA - Israel on Sunday issued a tender for about 1,300 new settlement homes in the occupied West Bank. In addition, authorities are also expected to discuss proposals for another 3,000 homes that have attracted attention from the United States.
The Land Authority of Israel posted tenders for new houses to be built in settlements in the West Bank, which are in Palestinian-owned territory.
A government planning committee is also expected in the coming week to discuss proposals for some 3,000 new settlement units. An
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">Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Friday such moves could increase tensions and undermine efforts to reach a peace deal, citing Reuters Oct. 25.
Meanwhile, the West Bank-based Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the new settlement plan could have a "disastrous impact on opportunities for peace based on the two-state solution and on regional, US and international efforts to build trust between Israel and the Palestinian side".
Citing AFP's France 24, the total number of houses to be built in the announced tender stands at 1,355, according to the Ministry of Housing and Construction in Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's right-wing government.
The new homes add to more than 2,000 residences that defense sources said in August would be allowed for Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Housing Minister Zeev Elkin, a member of the far-right New Hope party, said in a statement, "strengthening the Jewish presence (in the West Bank) is essential to the Zionist vision".
Separately, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, speaking at a weekly cabinet meeting, called on world countries, and especially the United States, to confront Israel for the aggression that settlement building inflicts on the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian Authority will pay close attention to the response from the administration of US President Joe Biden, which says it opposes unilateral Israeli settlement building as an obstacle to a two-state solution to the conflict.
To note, some 475,000 Israeli Jews live in settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law, on land the Palestinians claim as part of their future state.
Anti-occupation group Peace Now said Sunday's announcement proved PM Bennett's diverse ideological coalition, which toppled former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pro-settlement government in June, was not a government of change.
"This government is clearly continuing Netanyahu's de facto annexation policy," Peace Now criticized, calling on Bennett's left-wing government partners, Labor and Meretz, to wake up and demand that illegal construction in settlements be stopped immediately.
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