Israel announced plans today to build 851 new homes for settlers in the occupied West Bank after parliament defeated a bill to legalise all settler apartments on privately-owned Palestinian land.
Palestinians fear Israeli settlements, built on land Israel captured in a 1967 war, will deny them a viable state, and they refuse to return to peace talks frozen since 2010 until their expansion is halted.
Housing minister Ariel Atias announced the plan to build 551 housing units in various settlements across the West Bank and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said 300 new apartments would be constructed in the settlement of Beit El.
Mr Netanyahu won a parliamentary battle against an attempt by far-right politicians to legalise all settler homes on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and pledged to abide by a supreme court ruling and remove five settler apartment houses on disputed tracts in the settlement of Beit El.
But when the right-wing leader announced that his government would have to abide by the court ruling he added that the 30 families living in the apartments that would have to be removed would remain in Beit El "and 300 more families will join them."
The UN World Court considers the settlements illegal but Israel, citing historical and Biblical links to the territory, disputes this.
Reuters