A picture taken on October 13, 2020, shows new housing construction in the Nokdim settlement in the Israeli occupied West Bank
Credit: AFP
Britain has urged Israel to abandon its controversial expansion of settlements in the West Bank, expressing "deep concern" over plans to build nearly 5,000 more settler houses in the disputed territory.
"The UK’s position is clear: Israel’s settlement expansion violates international law and makes a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more difficult," said James Cleverly, the UK’s foreign minister for Northern Africa and the Middle East.
The joint statement was issued alongside France, Germany, Italy and Spain, warning Israel that settlement expansion undermined its recent achievements securing peace and enhanced trade with the United Emirates and Bahrain.
Israeli construction cranes and excavators at a building site of new housing units in the Jewish settlement of Kochav Yaakov, near the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank
Credit: AFP
"We therefore call for an immediate halt to settlement construction, as well as to evictions and to demolitions of Palestinian structures in East-Jerusalem and the West Bank," the five countries added.
Israel occupied the West Bank during the war of 1967 and has since allowed settlements to spring up across the area, which has led to Palestinians being stripped of their properties or evicted.
Israel and the United States both deny that the settlements are a breach of international law and the issue continues to be a sticking point between the Jewish state and its European allies.
Around 450,000 Israeli settlers currently live in the West Bank and have frequently clashed with Palestinian communities.
In one high-profile case, condemned by Israel and the Palestinians, an extremist settler murdered a Palestinian child and his parents during a 2015 arson attack. He was jailed for life by an Israeli court earlier this year.
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