Monday 2 March 2009

Peace Now unveils big settlement projects in West Bank and O. Jerusalem


Peace Now unveils big settlement projects in West Bank and O. Jerusalem

[ 02/03/2009 - 07:46 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli Peace Now organization has unveiled Monday that the Israeli occupation authorities was planning to construct 73,000 new settlement units in the West Bank and the eastern part of the occupied city of Jerusalem.

According to the organization, all hopes for a two-state solution would evaporate if the plans are implemented on the ground.

It added that the Israeli "housing" ministry approved the construction of 15,000 units, in addition to laying out the plans to build 58,000 more units that still have to be approved.

It said that the information that it got from the ministry's official website on the internet revealed that at least 5,722 units will be constructed in the eastern part of the occupied city of Jerusalem, and that 15,156 units were endorsed by the ministry, out of which 8,950 had been constructed already.

The organization, furthermore added, that if the 73,000 units constructed, number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and east Jerusalem would increase by 300,000 settlers.

It also disclosed that the IOA was planning to build 17,000 settlement units in Israeli settlement of Gush Etizion between the two Palestinian cities of Al-Khalil and Jerusalem.

Around 19,000 settlement units will be established in Israeli settlements located east of the apartheid wall such as Keryat Arba, Karni Shamron, Ariel, Emmanuel, and Rafafah.

More settlement units will also be constructed in scattered Israeli colonies, in a bid to make them official settlements, despite the Israeli government's pledges to remove those random colonies, the organization highlighted.

At least 3,000 settlement units, the organization disclosed, were prepared to be erected in area E1 located between the occupied city of Jerusalem and the biggest Israeli settlement in the West Bank Ma'ale Adomim that, if implemented, would separate the southern from the central West Bank.

Officials of the organization warned that once the scheme is implemented and accomplished, the Palestinian dream of having an independent viable state would vanish once and for all.

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