EGYPT CENSURES NEW ISRAELI SETTLEMENT EXPANSION PLAN
Cairo,11 Rabi’ul Akhir 1436/1 Febuary 2015 (MINA) – Egypt has strongly criticized the Israeli regime’s plan to construct more illegal settler units in the West Bank amid international outcry over Tel Aviv’s expansionist policies in the occupied Palestinian lands.
On Saturday, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Bader Abdelatty, said the plan undermines efforts made for the resumption of the so-called Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. said the statement Middle East Monitor (MEMO) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting. Sunday.
He added that Israel’s new settlement expansion plan flagrantly violates the international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prevents an occupying power from construction and/or transfer of its own population into occupied territory.
Abdelatty also called upon the international community to pressure Israel to stop its settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Under Israel’s new settlement expansion plan, 112 new illegal settler homes will be built in Geva Binyamin, also known as Adam, 156 in Elkana, 78 in Alfei Menashe and 84 others in Kiryat Arba settlements.
Following the announcement, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official Wassel Abu Yusef denounced the move by Tel Aviv, saying the expansion of settlements amounted to a “war crime.”
“What the Israelis announced is part of a wider war… against the Palestinian people,” Abu Yusef said, warning that the Israeli settlement issue would be taken to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently said that Palestinians would formally join the ICC on April 1, where it plans to complain against Israeli crimes.
More than half a million Israelis live in more than 120 settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East al-Quds (Jerusalem), in 1967.
The Israeli settlements are considered to be illegal by the United Nations and most countries because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are thus subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.(T/P002/R04)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)