Israel approves nearly 800 housing units in three West Bank settlements
· The Straits TimesJERUSALEM, Dec 10 - Israel has given final approval for 764 housing units to be built in three settlements in the occupied West Bank, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Wednesday, a move condemned by the Palestinian Authority as undermining regional peace efforts.
The ultra-nationalist Smotrich, who opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, said that since the beginning of his term in late 2022, some 51,370 housing units have been approved by the government's Higher Planning Council in the West Bank, territory Palestinians seek for a future state.
Palestinian state news agency WAFA said the Palestinian Authority called on U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to pressure Israel over its settlement policies.
Washington should press Israel to "reverse their settlement policies, attempts at annexation and expansion, and the theft of Palestinian land, and to compel them to abide by international legitimacy and international law," said the Palestinian president's spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh.
The units will be spread out between Hashmonaim, just over the Green Line in central Israel, and Givat Zeev and Beitar Illit near Jerusalem.
Most world powers deem Israel's settlements - on land it captured in a 1967 war - illegal and numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions have called on Israel to halt all settlement activity.
"For us, all the settlements are illegal...and they are contrary to all the resolutions of international legitimacy," Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee, told Reuters.
Israel says settlements are critical to its security and cites biblical, historical and political connections to the territory.
Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians have been on the rise. At least 264 attacks in the West Bank against Palestinians were reported in October, the biggest monthly total since U.N. officials began tracking such incidents in 2006, according to a U.N. report. REUTERS