Abbas aide: Israel can't continue settlement construction and do peace at the same time

Wednesday December 05, 2007 14:42 by Rasheed Hilal - IMEMC News

Nabeel Abu Rodyianh, the spokesman for the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called for the immediate halt of Israeli construction in the Abu Ghinim settlement, located Between the West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Abu Ghinim settlement - file 2007

He also called for an immediate halt to Israeli army attacks on the Gaza Strip which have left 22 people dead in one week.

Rodyianh stated that the Israeli governments' decision to build 307 additional houses in the Abu Ghinim settlement is a violation of the agreement reached between the Israelis and Palestinians at the Annapolis conference in the US in late November.

He added that the Israels continuation of settlement building violated the US backed Road Map peace plan which clearly states Israel should halt all settlement activity in the Palestinian areas.

The Palestinian official called on the US administration which sponsored both the Annapolis conference and the Road Map Peace plan to intervene and stop those Israeli actions, as he considered them a real threat to the peace process.

Abu Rodyianh concluded his statement by saying" Israeli should know that it can't continue settlement activity and arbitrary killing and then turn around and do peace."

Translated by Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC News

ramallah | israeli settlement | news report ghassanb at imemc dot org