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Israel approves hundreds of new settlements in West Bank

Xinhua, August 31, 2016 Adjust font size:

Israel on Wednesday approved the construction of hundreds of new housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, according to Peace Now, an Israeli organization that monitors settlement building.

The approval was made by the Civil Administration's High Planning Committee, Israel's official regulator for construction projects in the occupied West Bank.

According to the committee's decision, the new plans include 234 housing units in the settlement of Elkana, south of Nablus city, which will served the elderly.

The committee also approved 31 housing units in Beit Arie, in central West Bank, and 21 units in Givat Ze'ev, a settlement neighborhood of East Jerusalem.

The committee also retroactively legalized 179 housing units in Beit Arie that were built in the past without permits.

Ahead of the decision, Peace Now said that since January 2016, plans for 2,706 new units in West Bank settlements have been promoted, 756 of them are retroactive approval of previously unauthorized construction.

"Not only that the Netanyahu government does not believe in a two states solution, it is actively trying to kill it by building more and more in the settlements," a spokesperson with Peace Now said in a statement.

"This policy contradicts the very essential interests of the state of Israel," the statement said.

The Jewish settlements, built on lands that Israel occupied in 1967, are illegal under international law.

On Monday, Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations' coordinator for the Middle East, told the UN Security Council that construction in the settlements had surged in the past two months. Endit