Alwaght- Israel mulls approval of two mega settlement plans comprising more than 3,400 housing units in the occupied al-Quds as part of occupying regime's illegal settlement construction activities across the occupied Palestinian territories.
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)’s Settlement and Wall Resistance Commission was cited by the official Wafa news agency as saying on Sunday that the occupying regime is set to approve a total of 3,412 settler units over the following week.
Muayyad Shaaban, head of the commission, said in a press statement that the two settlement plans would see the construction of new housing units which will be built on an estimated area of 518 acres in the eastern outskirts of the occupied city.
Shaaban stressed that the approval by the occupation authorities would expose about 2,000 Palestinians living in the area to the risk of forced displacement.
The head of the commission said the implementation of the two settlement plans would lead to the separation of the north of the West Bank from its south, warning that it would disconnect Palestinian neighborhoods in the heart of al-Quds from their Palestinian environs east and south of the city, also preventing the possibility of the future expansion of the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Shaaban also added that the implementation of the so-called E1 settlement plan, which separates the West Bank from East al-Quds, is a serious violation of the foundations of the political process.
‘‘The occupation authorities, due to the international rejection of this scheme, postponed work on it for periods of time, but today, they are deceiving the world through the silent implementation of the scheme and the imposition of facts on the ground,’’ he added.
Most of the international community considers Israeli settlement construction illegal under international law.
Nearly 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
The UN Security Council has in several resolutions condemned the Tel Aviv regime’s settlement projects in the occupied Palestinian lands.
