JERUSALEM
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has unfrozen construction of 1800 Jewish settlement units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in retaliation for the unveiling of a new Palestinian unity government earlier this week, an Israeli official told Israeli daily Haaretz on Thursday.
The new Jewish-only settlement units will be built in several parts of the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, according to the anonymous Israeli official who spoke to Haaretz.
Earlier Thursday, Israel's Housing Ministry invited bids for the construction of 1500 additional settlement units in East Jerusalem and a number of others in the West Bank.
The move comes three days after Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a new Palestinian unity government, in line with a reconciliation deal signed in April between Gaza-based faction Hamas and the Ramallah-based Fatah movement.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat denounced the new settlement plans, asserting in a written statement that Israel was "using the new Palestinian unity bid to destroy the two-state solution."
International law considers the West Bank and East Jerusalem occupied territories seized by Israel in 1967 and views as illegal all Jewish settlement building on the land.
Palestinian negotiators insist that Israeli settlement building on Arab land must stop before a comprehensive peace agreement can be reached.
By Abdel-Raouf Arnaout
www.aa.com.tr/en
