Palestinian UN envoy: Israeli settlements illegal, destructive

Riyad Mansour sent a protest letter to the UN Security Council on Monday saying the Tel Aviv regime’s “illegal and destructive plans not only inflames tensions but further underscores the dubious nature” of Israel’s claims of “readiness to negotiate.”

Mansour sent the letter ahead of a meeting of the so-called Middle East Quartet scheduled to be held in Washington on Wednesday. The Quartet consists of Russia, the European Union, the United Nations, and the United States.

On April 4, Israel published tenders for 872 new illegal homes in the Har Homa settlement in southern al-Quds (Jerusalem), and another 180 illegal settler units in Givat Zeev, to the north of al-Quds in the occupied West Bank. Tenders were also published for 69 homes in the illegal Katzrin settlement in the occupied Golan Heights.

Mansour called on the UN Security Council to condemn the illegal Israeli settlement activities, saying the building campaign was “being deliberately waged in an attempt to seize more Palestinian land and entrench (Israel’s) control over the Palestinian territory.”

About 500,000 Israelis live in more than 100 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the number of the settlers is increasing.