Abbas slams plans for new settler homes
TEL AVIV: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Tuesday to build 3,500 new settler homes in a super-sensitive area of the occupied West Bank, just a week before a tight general election.
Netanyahu’s vow, which drew immediate Palestinian condemnation, is the latest in a string of promises to expand settlements as the rightwing premier faces both the election and a corruption trial.
“I gave immediate instructions for a permit to deposit (plans) for the construction of 3,500 units in E1,” Netanyahu said.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the plan “violates international law and breaches all red lines.”
“We are building Jerusalem and Jerusalem’s outskirts,” Netanyahu said at a conference in remarks relayed by a spokesman.
Angela Godfrey-goldstein, co-director of Jahalin Solidarity, an NGO working to prevent the displacement of Palestinian Bedouin living in the E1 area, said the construction could mean their forced expulsion and constitute a “war crime.”
“If allowed to go ahead, this move will end the potential for a viable, sustainable Palestinian state, and is yet another example of how desperate Bibi (Netanyahu) is to buy votes so as to stay out of prison at the expense of our future,” she said.
On Tuesday, Britain condemned the Givat Hamatos move, saying it “undermines the viability of a future Palestinian state.”
Further south, in Maale Adumim, a settlement of more than 40,000 people about 15 minutes drive from occupied Jerusalem, the red-roofed homes, shopping mall, flowerbeds and traffic make it look like many other Israeli cities.
But most of the international community regards it and other settlements as a violation of international law.
Israel rejects that view, and is largely backed by the Trump administration.
In Kiryat Arba settlement, settler leader Elyakim Haetzni said anyone supporting Netanyahu was being duped “like the children following the Pied Piper of Hamelin.”
Meanwhile, calm returned on Tuesday after a two-day flare-up in and around Gaza between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Israeli military reported no rocket fire from the territory during the morning and correspondents in Gaza reported no Israeli strikes.