"Israel is moving to start construction on a vast illegal settlement in the heart of the West Bank, designed to bury the idea of a Palestinian state. The Israel Land Authority in mid-December quietly posted a tender for construction of 3,401 homes in the E1 project, which will effectively sever the north and south of the occupied West Bank for Palestinians, and further cut off East Jerusalem."
"The tender, which has not been reported previously, lays out terms for companies to bid for part of the work, with a deadline for submissions in mid-March. It reflects an accelerated effort to advance construction in E1, said Yonatan Mizrachi, a co-director of Settlement Watch with the advocacy group Peace Now, which found the document online. This timeline suggests bulldozers could start work in less than a year, he added."
"The construction work would seal a land grab the British government has described as a flagrant breach of international law. Building settlements in this area is a decades-old idea with cross-party backing in Israel, mooted initially in the 1990s by Yitzhak Rabin, the Labor prime minister and Nobel peace laureate who was assassinated in 1995 by a rightwing nationalist. For years, construction was blocked by the US and the country's European allies,"
Israel posted a tender in mid-December to build 3,401 homes in the E1 area of the occupied West Bank. E1 lies between Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Ramallah and would sever the north from the south of the West Bank for Palestinians and further cut off East Jerusalem. The tender sets terms for companies to bid, with a mid-March submission deadline, suggesting construction could begin in less than a year. The plan has long-standing cross-party support in Israel. The British government called the land grab a flagrant breach of international law. E1 would critically damage prospects for a two-state solution and create irreversible facts leading toward a one-state, apartheid-like reality.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]