Iran Press/ West Asia: Guy Inbar, the spokesman for Israel’s military-run Civil Administration in the West Bank, said on Thursday that initial plans to build 800 new settler homes were approved a day earlier. However, actual construction would require sign-off from the government.
“This is a lengthy process,” said Inbar, who did not immediately provide further details on the plans.
Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog, put the number of new homes discussed by the Civil Administration on Wednesday at 1,096 and said they were earmarked for 11 illegal settlements, some located deep within the West Bank.
Israeli expansion on the West Bank could complicate US-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, which resumed last month after an almost three-year freeze over the settlement dispute and whose second round was expected to take place next week.
Settler population
Israeli radio said interior ministry figures showed that the settler population in the West Bank had risen by 7,700 during the first six months of 2013.
This represented a 2.1 percent rise in six months, compared to an annual population growth of two percent registered in Israel.
Israel has said it would annex major West Bank settlement blocs, mainly situated close to the Israeli border, under any peace accord with the Palestinians. The number of illegal settlers in West Bank outposts that could be dismantled as part of an eventual agreement between Israel and the Palestinians rose by 1.7 percent in the first half of the year, the report added.
The Israeli government on Sunday added 20 more illegal settlements to a list drawn up in 2009 of Jewish communities prioritized for aid.
Settlement buildings in the West Bank and mostly Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel seized in the 1967 Six-Day War, are considered illegal under international law.
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