Settlement building in the West Bank of Israeli authority approved

A controversial plan for the expansion of the Israeli settlement building in the West Bank has been approved, according to the mayor of the Maale Adumim settlement. A committee submitted to the Israeli Ministry of Defense approved the plan of the right -wing extremist Israeli finance minister Bezhalel Smotrich, as Mayor Guj Jifrah said on Wednesday. The E1 project provides for the construction of 3400 new residential units in the West Bank occupied by Israel and would split the Palestinian area in two parts.

Smotrich had presented the plan last week and that the recent announcements about the recognition of a Palestinian state announced by several countries justified. “Those who want to recognize a Palestinian state today will receive an answer from us in the form of concrete facts: houses, districts, streets and Jewish families who build their lives,” said the minister.

Several states, including France, Great Britain and Canada, had announced in the past few weeks to officially recognize a Palestinian state in September. The Federal Government decided on Wednesday that it “decidedly” rejected the approval of the Israeli settlement plan for the West Bank. Vice government spokesman Steffen Meyer said in Berlin, “the settlement building violates international law and makes a two -state solution”. The Federal Government calls on the Israeli government to hire the expansion of the settlement building.

Israel had taken control of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 six -day war. According to international law, the establishment of Israeli settlements in these Palestinian areas is illegal. Despite protest from abroad, Israel has built dozens of settlements in West Bank in the past decades, where around 500,000 Israelis live alongside around three million Palestinians.