Tel Aviv (dpa) – Israel on Wednesday approved the construction of 695 new housing units in and near the Jewish settlement of Shiloh, in the heart of the West Bank, north-east of Ramallah, a settlement watchdog group said. Some 121 of them already exist – 93 in an outpost, Shvut Rachel, set up just outside the settlement without government authorization, said the Israeli group Peace Now. They were retroactively “legalized” by the Israeli authorities, in a deal negotiated with settler leaders. The remaining 574 units OK'd by a West Bank planning council are yet to be built and need further approval. The United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Robert Serry, issued a statement condemning the blueprint. “Today's announcement by Israel to approve a large number of new units deep inside the occupied Palestinian territory in the settlement of Shilo and retroactively legitimize (several) in a nearby outpost is deplorable and moves us further away from the goal of a two-state solution,” he said. Peace Now condemned the move a “victory for law breakers.” “They legalized the illegal and on top of that they gave them a bonus of more construction,” a spokesman, Lior Amihai, told dpa. Under international law, all settlements built on occupied land are illegal, but Israeli law regards only unauthorized outposts – built without permits – as illegal. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/7cO5T Tags: Illegal, Israel, Settlements, West Bank Section: Human Rights, Latest News, Palestine
