US censures Israel for settlement plans

June 14, 2013 by occupiedpalestine 0 Comments

“Settling” constitutes a warcime according to international law and ICC statute. Even under US’ own military legislations’
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A view of the illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar (file photo)

PressTV | Fri Jun 14, 2013 1:43PM

The United States has criticized the Israeli regime’s plan to construct over 1,000 illegal settler units in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

“The secretary has expressed his concern in the past both publicly and in private conversations.” State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement on Friday.

“We don’t accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity,” the statement said.

Israel said earlier it is going ahead with plans to build more than 1,000 homes in two illegal settlements deep in the West Bank in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
A regime spokesman said on Thursday that the new homes will be built in Itamar and Bruchin settlements, located in an area of the West Bank which Israel occupied in 1967.
On the same day, Nabil Shaath, an adviser to acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas, said the latest Israeli move shows Tel Aviv “is destroying the two-state solution and the prospects of a peace deal in deeds and words.”
Last month, the Israeli settlement watchdog Terrestrial Jerusalem reported that Tel Aviv plans to build 1,000 new settler units in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
The NGO said that contracts for 300 homes in the northeastern settlement of Ramot were signed and another 797 plots were to be offered for sale in the southern settlement of Gilo.
Gilo is also one of five major settlements in East al-Quds that were established by the Israeli regime following the Six-Day War of 1967.
The Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestine have created a major obstacle to the Middle East peace process.
A report released last month revealed that the Israeli regime confiscated 1,977 acres of the Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank for its settlement activity during 2012.
The settlements, which cover an area roughly equal to 1,035 soccer fields and twice as big as New York’s Central Park, were approved by “military order,” the Israeli daily Haaretz reported on May 27.
More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.
MAM/KA