Israel ignored resolution against settlements – UN
UNITED NATIONS, United States: Israel has ignored a United Nations resolution demanding it halt settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territory that was criticized by the Trump administration, the world body’s Middle East envoy said Friday.
Although the UN Security Council resolution passed December 23 demanded that Israel immediately cease all settlement activities, “no such steps have been taken,” envoy Nickolay Mladenov said in his first report to the council since the resolution was adopted.
“The January spike in illegal settlement announcements by Israel is deeply concerning,” he said.
In January, Israel made five announcements on settlement building that together totaled more than 6,000 homes in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem.
In early February, Israel declared its intention to build what would anti-settlement group Peace Now says would be the first new settlement by an Israeli government since 1992.
Mladenov also expressed concern about the Israeli parliament’s approval of a new settlement law on February 6 that retroactively legalizes dozens of Jewish outposts and thousands of settler homes built on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.
The new law will allow Israel to legally seize Palestinian private land on which Israelis carried out construction without knowing it was private property or because the state allowed them to do so.
Palestinian owners will be compensated financially or with different land.
Mladenov said the law represents a major change in Israel’s position on the question of legality in the Palestinian occupied territories.
Settlements in both the West Bank and east Jerusalem are viewed as illegal under international law and major stumbling blocks to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians want for their own state.
The Middle East envoy’s report came before the 15nation Security Council held a closed-door session to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. — AFP
The January spike in illegal settlement announcements by Israel is deeply concerning. — Nickolay Mladenov, UN’s Middle East envoy