An Israeli decision to build a new settlement in the occupied West Bank was issued on Thursday amid wide Palestinian and international condemnations.
The Hamas spokesman Hazem Kasem said in a press statement that this decision confirms Israel’s continued violations of the international law.
Kasem affirmed that the decision points to the racist policy pursued by the Israeli occupation by displacing Palestinians and seizing their lands.
The Israeli Cabinet approved on Thursday the establishment of a new settlement for the settlers evacuated from the outpost of Amona as well as the continuation of the construction activities inside and around the settlements built on the lands of the occupied West Bank.
The new settlement is going to be the first in the occupied West Bank since 1999 because since then the Israeli occupation has been only expanding existing settlements or establishing settlement outposts.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper the new settlement will be built in Wadi Shilo area near Nablus city and it will be the first complete settlement to be established in 20 years.
Israeli media outlets said that the steps taken by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu to seize Palestinian lands south of Nablus to build the alternative settlement for Amona settlers came in cooperation with the administration of the US president Donald Trump.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the Israeli government’s decision.
For her part the member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization Hanan Ashrawi strongly denounced the decision and described it as “a blatant disregard of the human rights of the Palestinian people”.
Ashrawi said in a statement that after 41 years Israel still pursues policies based on settlement apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
The Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres expressed his disappointment regarding the new Israeli decision stressing that the settlement activities are illegal according to the international law and constitute a threat to the peace process and the two-state solution.
The Israeli anti-occupation and anti-settlement movement Peace Now affirmed that Netanyahu puts his political survival above the interests of Israel and that by complying to settlers’ pressures he is leading Israelis and Palestinians to one state with racial discrimination.
255 settlements and 163 outposts are built in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem with 620000 settlers living in them. These settlers are carrying out almost daily attacks on Palestinian citizens and their property in the occupied Palestinian territories.
