Israel to build 283 new homes
Israel yesterday said it published tenders for 283 new homes in a West Bank settlement, just days after announcing its biggest land grab on occupied Palestinian territory for three decades.
The expansion of the Elkana settlement, in the northwest of the West Bank, was approved in January and the tenders published Thursday, Israel's Land Authority said on its website.
The Jewish state in January said it would advance the construction of some 5,000 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, including in Elkana, Haaretz newspaper reported at the time.
Haaretz said that move was aimed at diffusing Israeli public anger over the release of Palestinian prisoners under US-brokered peace talks that later collapsed.
The process for those units had been put on hold over the summer during the Gaza war, housing ministry spokesman Ariel Rozenberg told AFP.
Israel announced Sunday its biggest land grab in the West Bank since the 1980s, saying it planned to expropriate 400 hectares (988 acres) of land in the south of the territory, between the cities of Bethlehem and Hebron.
That move drew international condemnation, even from ally the United States and some Israeli cabinet ministers.
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