The UN human rights office has said an Israeli plan to build thousands of new homes between a occupied West Bank settlement and East Jerusalem violates international law and could put nearby Palestinians at risk of forced eviction, which it said would be a war crime.
Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced on Thursday that he would push ahead with the long-delayed project, claiming it would “bury” the prospect of a Palestinian state.
A UN spokesperson said the plan would fragment the West Bank into isolated enclaves and noted: “It is a war crime for an occupying power to transfer its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers currently live alongside 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, a move not recognised by most countries, but has not formally extended sovereignty over the West Bank.
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