File photo: Jewish Settlements in Jerusalem
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned an Israeli plan to build 20,000 new settlement homes in a major settlement east of Jerusalem.
"The settlement project aims at separating East Jerusalem from its surroundings,” the ministry said in a statement.
It said the settlement building “shuts the door to any plan to achieve peace on the basis of the two-state solution and thwarts any efforts to launch a real peace process".
Earlier on Sunday, Israeli daily Yisrael Hayom (Israel Today) reported that the Ministry of Construction and Housing and the municipality of Ma'aleh Adumim signed an agreement to build some 20,000 housing units in the settlement.
A Palestinian has succumbed to wounds he sustained by Israeli army fire during anti-occupation protests along border of the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to the Health Ministry.Yahya Bader al-Hassanat, 37, from the central Gaza Strip, died of his head injury on Sunday, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said in a statement.For the last seven months, Palestinians in Gaza have been staging regular demonstrations along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone to demand the right to return to their homes in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948.They also demand an end to Israel’s 12-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.Since the rallies began on March 30, more than 200 Palestinians have been martyred-- and thousands more injured -- by Israeli troops deployed along the other side of the buffer zone.Palestinian group announces Gaza ceasefire with IsraelOman offers help in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts
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The project will be implemented once it is approved by the Israeli government, the newspaper said.
Settlement construction has been a major obstacle to the already stalled peace process between Palestinians and Israelis.
According to Palestinian figures, more than 700,000 Jewish settlers now live on 196 settlements (built with Israeli government approval) and more than 200 settler outposts (built without its approval) across the occupied West Bank.
International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity on the land to be illegal.