JERUSALEM // Israel said on Friday it published tenders for 283 new homes in a West Bank settlement, just days after announcing its biggest land grab on occupied Palestinian territory for three decades.
The expansion of the Elkana settlement, in the north-west of the West Bank, was approved in January and the tenders published on Thursday, Israel’s Land Authority said.
Israel in January said it would advance the construction of 5,000 settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, including in Elkana, Haaretz newspaper reported at the time.
Haaretz said that move was aimed at diffusing Israeli public anger over the release of Palestinian prisoners under US-brokered peace talks that later collapsed.
The process for those units had been put on hold over the summer during the Gaza war, housing ministry spokesman Ariel Rozenberg said.
Israel on Sunday made its biggest land grab in the West Bank since the 1980s, saying it planned to expropriate 400 hectares of land in the south of the territory, between the cities of Bethlehem and Hebron.
That move drew international condemnation, even from the United States and some Israeli cabinet ministers.
The US State Department urged Israel to “reverse this decision”, and the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said he was “alarmed” by Israel’s plans.
Israel’s settlement building, which is illegal under international law, is seen as an obstacle to any lasting peace with the Palestinians.
The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is expected to make a push for a deadline to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank at the UN General Assembly this month.
Jerusalem’s municipality on Wednesday authorised the construction of 2,200 residential units in an Arab neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, saying it was aimed at “upgrading the standard of living and assuming responsibility for all activities taking place in Arab neighbourhoods”.
* Agence France-Presse
