Alwaght- Israeli regime has approved the construction of nearly 5,700 illegal Settlements in the occupied West Bank as the apartheid regime presses ahead with its illegal settlement expansion policy in the Palestinian territories under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist cabinet.
Palestinian media reports said the Higher Planning Committee of the occupying regime’s so-called Civil Administration body rubber-stamped the construction of 5,623 new settler units on Monday.
“The approval includes depositing plans for the construction of 4,291 new colonial settler units, which constitutes an advanced stage of the planning and construction stages by the occupation authorities prior to issuing tenders for the implementation of construction projects,” Palestine's official Wafa news agency said.
“It also includes submitting 1,332 building plans for approval after holding a session for hearing objections, before final approval and preparation of tenders,” the agency added.
The new settler units are to be built in “Eli” settlement, south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, in line with an agreement between Netanyahu and two of his far-right cabinet’s ministers.
Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law as they are built on the occupied territory.
More than 700,000 occupying settlers live in 279 Israeli settlements built since the regime's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
The UN Security Council has issued multiple resolutions condemning the Israeli regime’s settlement activities in the occupied territories.
Palestinians insist on having the West Bank as part of a future independent state with East al-Quds as its capital.
The last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed in 2014. Among the major sticking points in those negotiations was the Tel Aviv regime’s continued illegal settlement expansion.
