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Israel new coalition against peace in region: Official

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat

A senior Palestinian official says the new coalition government formed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be belligerent and work against peace in the region.

Israel's newly-announced lineup “will be one of war which will be against peace and stability in our region,” top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said on Thursday.

“This government will set its sights on killing and reinforcing settlement activities” on occupied Palestinian land, said Erakat.

Erakat’s remarks came after Netanyahu formed a new coalition cabinet just before a final midnight deadline.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks in (al-Quds) Jerusalem on April 22, 2015.

On Wednesday, Bibi announced a deal with the Jewish Home (Bayit Yehudi), a Zionist pro-settlement party.

The deal would give the Israeli premier the necessary 61 seats in the 120-member parliament to form the administration.

The last-minute deal was clinched seven weeks after Netanyahu’s Likud party won the general elections.

Israel started its latest war on the occupied Gaza Strip in early July last year. Over 2,100 people died and some 11,000 others were injured in the Israeli war, which ended on August 26, 2014 with a truce that took effect after indirect negotiations in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

Meanwhile, the presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle to efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem) in 1967.

The UN and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbids construction on occupied lands.

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