While the whole world attention heading to the Middle East region and most specifically to the Palestinian Territory and Israel, where there are an intensive US led International efforts to push the peace process and to give a chance for the directs talks between the Palestinians and the Israeli to succeed, the right wing Israeli government had approved new plans for building 3081 housing units in a numbr of Illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
On November 5, 2011, and while the Israeli PM Netanyahu was in a visit to the United States to discuss the settlement building freeze issue with President Obama, the Chairman of the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee had published a new tender to build 978 housing units in Har Homa settlement south of Jerusalem city, 930 of which to be built in Har Homa C, while the remaining 48 units to be built in Har Homa B.
Moreover, a day before the reveal of the Har Homa building plan, the Israeli Jerusalem Municipal Planning and construction committee had issued building permits for 32 housing units in Pisgat Ze’ev settlement in the northern parts of the city of Jerusalem; In addition, on December 1, 2010, the construction committee in the Israeli Ministry of Interior issued building permits for 625 housing units in the aforementioned settlement. Furthermore, 320 new housing units are planned to be built in Ramot settlement which was built on the lands of Beit Iksa, Lifta and Beit Hanina village north of the city of Jerusalem.
Few days later and on November 29, 2010, the Israeli Jerusalem Municipal Planning and construction committee approved a new plan to build 130 housing units in the Illegal Israeli settlement of Gilo southwest of the occupied city of Jerusalem. The newspaper also added that another plan of 800 housing units to be built in the Illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel in the northern parts of the West Bank. The Ariel plan only needs the approval of the Israeli local planning and building committee for the work to start. See Table 1
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Table 1: Details of the new Israeli Housing Units Plans in the West Bank & East Jerusalem Settlements in November 2010
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Name of the Settlement
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No. of Housing Units
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Location
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930
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East Jerusalem
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Har Homa C
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48
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East Jerusalem
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Pisgat Ze’ev
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32
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East Jerusalem
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Gilo
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130
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East Jerusalem
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Ramot
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320
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East Jerusalem
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Ariel
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800
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Salfit
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Pisgat Ze’ev
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625
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East Jerusalem
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Modi’in ‘Illit
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196
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Ramallah
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Total
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3081
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*****
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Map 1: Israeli settlements in and around Jerusalem city
On December 3, 2010, the Israeli Housing and Construction Ministry revealed new tender to build 196 housing units in Moreh neighborhood in the illegal Israeli settlement of Modi’in ‘Illit west of Ramallah Governorate. Map 2
Map 2: Modi’in Illit Settlement Bloc
A repot conducted by the Associated Press News Agency was published in the Israeli daily newspaper “Haaretz” on October 21, 2010, indicated that 554 new Israeli housing units had been built in the West Bank settlements immediately since the end of the ten months settlement freeze on September 26, 2010 and until the date of publishing the report, which means that 544 housing units had been built in 25 days. See table 2:
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No. of Housing Units
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Governorate
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SettlementName
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200
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Ramallah
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Benymin Region
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45
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Salfit
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Ariel
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25
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Ramallah
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Beit Arieh
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62
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Salfit
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Barkan
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46
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Qalqilya
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Emmanuel
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20
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Hebron
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Har Adar
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50
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Jerusalem
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Har Hebron
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3
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Nablus
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Itamar
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56
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Hebron
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Karmi Tzur
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12
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Qalqilya
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Kedumim
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22
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Hebron
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Keryat Arba’
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3
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Qalqilya
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Oranit
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544
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*****
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TOTAL
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To Conclude
The right-wing Israeli Government headed by Benyamin Netanyahu is using the settlement issue, as tool, to wrap over the US-led international efforts in order to waste as much time as possible, where the only thing Mr. Netanyahu is seeking to achieve is to keep his extremist government coalition despite of the long-term consequences that will be resulted by neglecting the Palestinian rights to have their independent sovereign future state.
The existence of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and their expansions are Illegal and contradicts with the international law rules, United Nations Security Council Resolutions such as 237 (1967), 271 (1969), 446 (1979), 452 (1979) ,465 (1980.
Resolution 446 March 22, 1979 calls on Israel to rescind its previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem and, in particular, not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories’
Also the resolution 452 of the 1979 “calls upon the Government and people of Israel to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem.”
Furthermore the Forth Geneva Convention also states in Article 49 that “The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territories it occupies.” and Article 174 of the same convention “prohibits the ‘extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.”
In May 2001, the head of the International Red Cross delegation to Israel and the Occupied Territories said that settlements are ‘equal in principle to war crimes’. (Note: ‘The transfer, the installation of population of the occupying power into the occupied territories is considered as an illegal move and qualified as a ‘grave breach.’ It’s a grave breach, formally speaking, but grave breaches are equal in principle to war crimes’, Rene Kosirnik, head of the ICRC delegation to Israel and the OPT, press conference 17 May 2001.) .)
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[1] The construction of Ariel settlement started back in 1978 on lands that were confiscated from Salfit, Marda, Haris and Kifl Hareth villages in Salfit Governorate. Today the settlement occupies a total land area of 5184 dunums and houses a total population of 16800 Israeli settlers.
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