News / Palestine

Israel irked by UN criticism about illegal settlements

Tuesday, 30 August 2016 12:44 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 31 August 2016 3:39 AM ]

The picture taken on July 29, 2016 shows a general view of Israeli construction cranes and excavators at the building site of new settler units in the illegal settlement of Gilo in East Jerusalem al-Quds. ©AFP

Israel has reacted angrily to recent UN criticism about illegal settlement activities by the Tel Aviv regime in the occupied Palestinian territories, describing the brickbats as ridiculous.

In a statement released on Tuesday, David Keyes, the spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, branded the comments by UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov as “absurd,” claiming that they "made peace harder to achieve by distorting history and international law.”

On Monday, Mladenov told the UN Security Council that the expansion of Israeli settlements has surged in the two months since a key report called for a halt to such unauthorized construction activities in the Palestinian lands.

United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, addresses a Security Council meeting at the UN headquarters in New York on March 24, 2016. ©AP

The eight-page report by the Quartet - comprising the United Nations, the US, Russia and the European Union - was published on July 1. It said the Israeli settlement expansion, the demolition of Palestinian homes and the expropriation of land were “steadily eroding the viability of the [so-called] two-state solution.”

In his Monday remarks, Mladenov echoed concerns raised in the Quartet report and said that the group's recommendations “continue to be ignored, including by a surge in Israeli settlement-related announcements and continuing demolitions.”

Since July 1, Israel has advanced plans for more than 1,000 illegal housing units in the occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds and 735 units in the West Bank, he added.

Mladenov further warned that the construction of illegal settlements on Palestinian lands is killing off the prospects for a so-called two-state solution.

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

Over half a million Israelis live in more than 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank including East Jerusalem al-Quds.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under the international law. Tel Aviv has defied calls to stop the settlement expansions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

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