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West Bank settlements expanding, Says Israeli Peace Now
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Steven L. Robinson - activ-l
[The number of West Bank settlers has increased by 5.8% in the last
year. SR]
DPA - Middle East News - Nov 7, 2007
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1371817.php/Peace
_Now_Construction_in_West_Bank_settlements_outpost_continues
Peace Now: Construction in West Bank settlements, outpost continues
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Jerusalem - Israel continues to build in the occupied West Bank, mainly
in settlement blocs on the western side of its security barrier and
around Jerusalem which it has stated it wants to keep as part of a
future peace deal with the Palestinians, a re****t published Wednesday
said.
Settlers also continue to build in new outposts set up without formal
government authorization during the past years, said the re****t by the
Israeli Peace Now organization, which monitors settlement construction
in the West Bank.
The settlers had found a new method to cir***vent a government ban on
the entry of trailers into the West Bank without permits, and are
trans****ting ready-made parts such as walls and windows into the
occupied territory, which they then assemble on location, it said.
Peace Now added that at least new 35 mobile and 10 permanent homes were
set up in outposts throughout the West Bank during the past six months.
At least six new roads in and to them were also built.
The number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank has grown by 5.8 per cent
since last year and reached 267,500, said the re****t, pointing out this
growth is more than three times the population growth in Israel proper.
Most of the building is taking place in the settlements of Ma'aleh
Adumim, Beitar Illit, Giv'at Ze'ev and Modi'in Illit, near Jerusalem,
where hundreds of new apartments are under construction in each.
Dozens of new apartments are also being built in other settlements near
Jerusalem and on the western, 'Israeli' side of the West Bank barrier,
while minor construction is taking place on the eastern side of the
barrier, Peace Now said.
Settler leaders have complained of a 'construction freeze' in those
settlements which are not on the western side of Israel's West Bank
barrier or in the blocs Israel plans to keep.
But a statement from the Yesha settlers council said the continued
population growth was proof that the settlement enterprise was 'on a
role and not stopping for one moment,' despite the 'construction freeze,
political pressures and legal restrictions.'
Freezing construction in all settlements and uprooting dozens of new
outposts set up without formal government authorization in the past six
years is an Israeli obligation under the long-dormant, 2003 peace plan
known as the 'road map,' which Israel and the Palestinians plan to
revive at the international meeting due in Annapolis, Maryland late
this, or early next month.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told a news conference in Tel Aviv
last week that Israel would take up its obligation to uproot settlers'
outposts after Annapolis.
The issue of unauthorized outposts, she said, is not only a road map
obligation, but also one of 'law enforcement between the state of
Israel and its citizens,' she said, insisted at the same time the
Palestinians fulfil their obligation to combat militants.
The number of unauthorized settlers' outposts, often set up next to
existing settlements during the past decade when Israel stopped
formally building new settlements in the West Bank, currently stands at
106, Peace Now said. These exist near 124 older settlements.
Fifty of these outposts were built after March 2001, when the first
government of former premier Ariel Sharon took office, it said. Under
the road map, Israel must uproot all of these.
But the Israeli military uprooted only a handful of structures during
the past months, with the settlers conducting a 'war of attrition' by
returning to the outposts and re-erecting them again and again shortly
after their removal, said Peace Now.
'The Israeli government continues flagrantly to violate its obligations
under the road map,' the re****t charged. 'There is no freeze in
construction and there is no evacuation of outposts,' it said, calling
on Israel to 'immediately' begin implementing its road map obligations.
) 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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