A senior Israeli official said Thursday that his country will announce new plans for West Bank settlement construction in the coming months, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Rome for seven hours US Secretary of State John Kerry.
According to the Israeli Radio, the official, speaking anonymously because new building plans have yet to be announced publicly, said the “Americans and Palestinians were aware of the Israeli intentions that were made clear before talks resumed.” The Palestinians refused to negotiate with Netanyahu for nearly five years, demanding that he halt construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. With Netanyahu refusing to stop the construction, the Palestinians reluctantly returned to the negotiating table under heavy American pressure, but remain deeply skeptical about the Israeli leader. Nabil Abu Rodeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, rejected the Israeli official’s comments. “We don’t accept any settlement bids and Israel should stop these acts to give negotiations the opportunity to succeed,” he said Thursday. “For us, all settlements are illegal and Israel should top putting obstacles in the way of peace and all its acts in this regard are illegal and void.”
Building in the settlement of Hahashmonaim (Photo: Activestills)
Israeli authorities banned Palestinians from continuing construction on a park in the Jenin district village of Bartaa al-Sharqiya, a local official told Ma’an Palestinian news agency Thursday. Tawfiq Qabha, a member of the village council, told Ma’an that volunteers established the park – the only public park in the village – four months ago. Thursday morning, Qabha said, Israeli soldiers prevented locals from working on the park, saying that because they had not secured a construction permit, work on the park would have to stop. He said that Israel has targeted Bartaa al-Sharqiya since 2003, when it began building the separation wall that now surrounds the village. Israeli forces have imposed a checkpoint that has strictly limited freedom of movement for village residents, Qabha continued.
The village, inside the Bartaa enclave, is one of eight communities encircled by the separation wall. The area falls in what Israel defines as the Seam Zone, a quasi-military zone in which construction is forbidden without prior coordination with Israeli authorities, which is near-impossible to secure. According to the UN, Around 7,500 Palestinians who reside in the Seam Zone require special permits to continue living in their own homes; another 23,000 will be isolated upon the wall’s completion.
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