Peace Now: Israel continue to expanding West Bank settlements

Tuesday December 18, 2007 14:50 by Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News

The Israeli parliamentary block Peace Now movement issued a report on Tuesday documenting the Israeli continued settlement activity in the West Bank.

Abu Ghinim settlement - file 2007

The report shows that the Israeli government continued to build homes inside Israeli settlements in the West Bank and demolished at least eight Palestinian homes after the Annapolis conference held in Moreland city USA in late November.

The statement issued by the settlement monitor department at the Peace Now movement said "Although Olmert declared a settlement freeze; we see that on the ground there is construction in settlements all over the west bank, in all kinds of settlements, and as long as the Government does not stop settlement activity on the ground, the negotiations cannot succeed."

A group of activists documented this continued construction in several settlements. Including the Har Homa settlement block - known to Palestinians as the Abu Ghinim settlement, which is built on land illegally taken from its Palestinian owners living in the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem.

On Monday Israeli government officials told Reuters news agency that their government will continue to add houses inside West Bank settlements but will not expand them.

In Annapolis the Israeli Premier Ehod Olmert and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to restart peace talks based on the US brokered Road Map Peace plan.

The Road Map Peace plan demands Israel to stop all settlement activity in the Palestinian areas in addition to halting all attacks on the Palestinians, in return the Palestinian Authority headed by Abbas will dismantle all armed Palestinian resistance groups.

The latest Israeli decision to continue settlement activity contradicts directly with what the Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed on in the November Annapolis conference.

According to the United Nations laws all Israeli settlements built on Palestinian occupied land is illegal and should be dismantled.

Commentators say that the recent settlement construction will without doubt widen the rift between the Palestinian and Israeli peace talks.

The EU and the US officials had recently urged Israel to stop its settlement activity, by deeming such moves as "threatening to the Peace process".

west bank | israeli settlement | news report ghassanb at imemc dot org