The Military’s Civil Administration for government activities in the territories reportedly approved blueprints for a new Jewish settlement in the West Bank, the first such decision in more than two decades, as well as a decision to construct an additional 1,800 housing units in already existing Jewish settlements.
The reported decision by the Administration’s planning committee, followed a government decision in March to build the settlement, which will be called Amichai, to house some 300 settlers evicted in February from the settlement of Amona. Israel’ Supreme Court had ordered the removal of the Amona settlers after ruling that their homes were built illegally on privately-owned Palestinian land, which led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pledge to re-house them at a new site in the West Bank. According to reports, the Administration’s panel approved plans to build 102 homes at the Amichai site for the Amona settlers.
Plans for another 1,800 dwellings in several existing settlements were also ratified. A spokeswoman for the Civil Administration declined to comment. Palestinian officials in the West Bank city of Ramallah immediately condemned the Israeli decision, saying that all of Israel’s construction on lands the Palestinians demand for their future state, including in east Jerusalem, which they view as their future capital, are illegal; while accusing President Donald Trump’s refusal to comment on Israel’s building policy, during his recent visit to the region, as the trigger behind Israel’s continued construction.
“When President Trump visited the region, and didn’t mention anything about the settlements, the Israeli government thought that it is a green light to continue expanding settlements against all international laws. For us, as Palestinians, our position is that all the settlements are illegal and against the law, including settlement activities in Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine,” Wassel Abu Yussef, Palestine Liberation Organization Official.
Israel rejects the Palestinian claims for Jerusalem, declaring that the city will remain the undivided and eternal capital of the Jewish state; while emphasizing that the Jewish settlement blocs, which house some half a million Israelis, will remain under Israeli sovereignty, under any final status agreement to the decades old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.