Palestinians Say Israel 'to be Accountable' for Settlements
Israel will be "held accountable" for its settlement building, a senior Palestinian official said Thursday after Israel pushed forward plans for more than 5,000 new settler homes.
"The settlers and the government of Israel should know they will be held accountable," Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for president Mahmoud Abbas, told Agence France Presse shortly after Israel reportedly okayed initial plans for a new settlement city in the southern West Bank.
He said all construction on Palestinian land seized by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War was "illegal" and that nothing would remain of the settlements after a peace deal.
"Not a single stone of those hysterical settlement projects in the West Bank or east Jerusalem will remain, so the Israeli government should back off immediately," he said.
His remarks came after the European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was "strongly opposed" to Israel's ramped up settlement building, particularly around east Jerusalem, which she described as "extremely troubling".
"I strongly oppose this unprecedented expansion of settlements around Jerusalem," she said in a statement early Thursday, a day after the United Nations had also urged Israel to renounce its plans to build more than 5,000 new settler homes in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Source: Agence France Presse
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