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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.
Heavy machinery work on a field as they begin construction work of Amichai, a new settlement which will house some 300 Jewish settlers evicted in February from the illegal West Bank settlement of Amona, in the West Bank June 20, 2017. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun - RTS17UHK
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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.

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