RAMALLAH, Palestine, July 31 (NNN-WAFA) – A senior Palestinian official, rejected Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal, on Israeli settlements’ expansion in the West Bank as “an attempt to steal the Palestinian lands.”
According to Israeli media, Netanyahu earlier proposed that Israel would allow Palestinian construction in Area (C) in the West Bank, in exchange for the expansion of Israeli settlements in the area.
Under the interim Oslo Agreement, signed between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Israeli government in 1993, the West Bank was divided into three areas: Area (A) under Palestinian control, Area (B) under Palestinian and Israeli control and Area (C) under full Israeli control.
Azzam el-Ahmad, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, told the official radio station, Voice of Palestine, that, Netanyahu’s proposal attempts to “legalise Israeli settlement.”
“It’s the natural Palestinian right, to build on land all over their homeland, including areas classified as Area (C), but Israel prevents building in this area, under the pretext of security and administrative control,” said el-Ahmad.
Netanyahu’s proposal “contradicts the spirits of international laws, which consider these territories as occupied by Israel,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, said, the Israeli government is treating Area (C) in the occupied West Bank as a strategic stock for its settlements.
The Israeli government is planning to turn all settlements in the West Bank into a geographical entity, similar to a Jewish state for the settlers in the West Bank, the ministry statement warned.– NNN-WAFA