Israeli plan for 15,000 more settlement homes in Jerusalem condemned

April 29, 2017

Jerusalem, Apr 29: Israel intends to build 15,000 new settlement homes in East Jerusalem, the Housing Ministry said on Friday despite US President Donald Trump’s request to “hold back” on settlements as part of a possible new push for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

A formal announcement of the settlement plan, quickly condemned by the chief Palestinian negotiator, could come around the time Trump is scheduled to visit Israel next month.

Israel views all of Jerusalem as its “eternal and indivisible capital,” but the Palestinians also want a capital there. Most of the world considers Jerusalem’s status an issue that must be decided through negotiations. The last peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in 2014.

Housing Minister Yoav Galant told Israel Radio that his ministry and the Jerusalem Municipality had been working on the plan for two years, with proposals for 25,000 units, 15,000 of which would be in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed.

“We will build 10,000 units in Jerusalem and some 15,000 within the (extended) municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. It will happen,” he said.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Israel’s move was a systematic violation of international law and a “deliberate sabotage” of efforts to resume talks.

“All settlements in occupied Palestine are illegal under international law,” he said in a statement. “Palestine will continue to resort to international bodies to hold Israel, the occupation power, accountable for its grave violations of international law throughout occupied Palestine.”

Channel 2 news said an announcement on building could be made on Jerusalem Day which this year, according to the Hebrew calendar, falls on May 24, when Israel celebrates its capture of the eastern part of the city.

This year marks the 50th anniversary, with a large number of celebrations planned. Trump’s visit is expected to take place on or shortly after May 22.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they hope to establish in the occupied West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Trump told Reuters in an interview at the White House on Thursday that he wanted to see a peace deal.

“I want to see peace with Israel and the Palestinians,” he said. “There is no reason there’s not peace between Israel and the Palestinians — none whatsoever.”

The US leader met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington in February and is to see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House on May 3.

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Israel orders 100,000 Palestinians to evacuate eastern Rafah ahead of ground invasion

News Network

May 6,2024

The Israeli regime is forcibly evacuating Palestinians from the eastern part of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip amid the prospect of its widely-discouraged ground invasion.

“The estimate is around 100,000 people,” an Israeli military spokesman told journalists on Monday when asked how many people were being evacuated.

International organizations, including the United Nations, have repeatedly warned the regime against invading the city, citing its hosting around 1.5 million Palestinian refugees.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a ground assault on Rafah would “put the final nail in the coffin” for humanitarian aid operations in the Gaza Strip.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also said, “Any ground operation would mean more suffering and death,” with an official saying “It could be a slaughter of civilians.”

Multiple aid agencies, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, have likewise warned against a Rafah offensive.

The NRC said such an invasion “would profoundly exacerbate the already catastrophic levels of need and the humanitarian emergency for millions of civilians with nowhere left to go.”

The official alleged Hamas had killed three Israeli forces on Sunday, attacking them from Rafah.

The evacuation order came a sat least 22 people lost their lives in the regime’s airstrikes killed in Rafah earlier on Monday.

Rafah’s evacuation “is part of our plans to dismantle Hamas,” the Israeli spokesman added, referring to the Palestinian resistance movement that has been defending Gaza in the face of the war.

The Palestinians have fled there from the ravages of a war that the regime began waging against Gaza on October 7, following a retaliatory operation by the coastal sliver’s resistance groups.

At least 34,683 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 78,018 others injured so far during the brutal military onslaught.

On Friday, Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, said Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on carrying out a ground invasion of Rafah was a key stumbling block in negotiations aimed at a truce agreement.

The Israeli premier has said the regime would go ahead with invading the city “with or without” a truce.

Hamas has, however, asserted that the regime has failed to defeat the resistance during the war.

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