Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government authorized construction bids for over a thousand new homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem a watchdog group reported Friday.
The settlement tenders came despite an Israeli pledge to halt settlement construction as part of efforts to curb a deadly wave of violence in the territory the anti-settlement Israeli group Peace Now said.
The Israel Land Authority published the tenders earlier this week for the construction of 940 homes in the West Bank settlements of Efrat and Beitar Ilit as well as 89 homes in the Gilo settlement which lies over the 1967 line on the southern edge of Occupied Jerusalem. The large settlement of Efrat sits deep in the West Bank near Bethlehem.
“This is yet another harmful and unnecessary construction initiative” the group said accusing the Israeli government of “trampling on the possibility of a future political agreement and on our relations with the US and friendly countries.”
