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Israel approves 695 homes in West Bank settlement, outpost

Israel Materials 23 February 2012 04:00 (UTC +04:00)
Israel on Wednesday approved the construction of 695 new housing units in and near the Jewish settlement of Shiloh, in the heart of the West Bank, north-east of Ramallah, a settlement watchdog group said.
Israel approves 695 homes in West Bank settlement, outpost

Israel on Wednesday approved the construction of 695 new housing units in and near the Jewish settlement of Shiloh, in the heart of the West Bank, north-east of Ramallah, a settlement watchdog group said, DPA reported.

Some 121 of them already exist - 93 in an outpost, Shvut Rachel, set up just outside the settlement without government authorization, said the Israeli group Peace Now.

They were retroactively "legalized" by the Israeli authorities, in a deal negotiated with settler leaders.

The remaining 574 units OK'd by a West Bank planning council are yet to be built and need further approval.

The United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Robert Serry, issued a statement condemning the blueprint.

"Today's announcement by Israel to approve a large number of new units deep inside the occupied Palestinian territory in the settlement of Shilo and retroactively legitimize (several) in a nearby outpost is deplorable and moves us further away from the goal of a two-state solution," he said.

Peace Now condemned the move a "victory for law breakers."

"They legalized the illegal and on top of that they gave them a bonus of more construction," a spokesman, Lior Amihai, told dpa.

Under international law, all settlements built on occupied land are illegal, but Israeli law regards only unauthorized outposts - built without permits - as illegal.

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