Israel planning 15,000 more settler units

Israel intends to build 15,000 new settler units in East Beit-ul-moqaddas, the regime said on Friday despite US President Donald Trump’s request to “hold back” on settlements as part of a possible new push for socalled Israeli-palestinian peace.

A formal announcement of the settlement plan, quickly condemned by the chief Palestinian negotiator, could come around the time Trump is scheduled to visit Israel next month, Reuters reported.

Israel views all of Beit-ul-moqaddas as its “eternal and indivisible capital,” but the Palestinians also want a capital there. Most of the world considers Beitul-moqaddas’ status an issue that must be decided through negotiations. The last talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in 2014.

Israel said the municipality in Beit-ulmoqaddas had been working on the plan for two years, with proposals for 25,000 units, 15,000 of which would be in East Beit-ulmoqaddas, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed.

“We will build 10,000 units in Jerusalem [Beit-ul-moqaddas] and some 15,000 within the (extended) municipal boundaries. It will happen,” he said.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator, said Israel’s move was a systematic violation of international law and a “deliberate sabotage” of efforts to resume talks.

“All settlements in occupied Palestine are illegal under international law,” he said in a statement. “Palestine will continue to resort to international bodies to hold Israel, the occupation power, accountable for its grave violations of international law throughout occupied Palestine.”

Palestinians want East Beit-ul-moqaddas as the capital of a state they hope to establish in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.