Palestinians despair as Israel breaks ground on new settlement
Despite UN Security Council Resolution 2334 and US President Donald Trump's efforts to resume the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Israel has approved plans to develop its first new settlement area in 25 years.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — While US President Donald Trump has been making efforts to resume the Palestinian Authority-Israel peace talks that have been stalled since 2014, on June 7, the High Planning Committee in the Israeli civil administration approved plans to build the first new Israeli settlement in the West Bank in the 25 years since the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993. It also approved a program to build 2,000 new housing units in other settlements including Kiryat Arba in southern Hebron and Kfar Tapuach in Nablus, the West Bank.
The plans consist of 102 housing units in a new settlement to be called Amichai, north of Ramallah in the center of the West Bank. The settlement will house the residents of the Amona outpost who were evicted in February after the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the settlement was illegally constructed on private Palestinian land.
During the Oslo process, Israel rejected the Palestinian demand for an absolute settlement freeze but agreed to refrain from building new settlements. However, dozens of settlements known as “residential neighborhoods” went up within the areas that were developed prior to the Oslo Accord. The new plans are for the first settlement in a new geographic area since the signing of the Oslo Accord.
During a Knesset ceremony marking 50 years since the West Bank was occupied, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said June 6, “We will continue to preserve the settlement enterprise, and everyone is entitled to live in his home and will not be removed from his home. I am privileged to be the prime minister to build a first new settlement in decades.”
