13,000 units after alleged settlement freeze expires

Peace Now movement said that at the end of the alleged settlement moratorium, about 13,000 housing units will be built in West Bank settlements without further government approval, of which 2,066 for immediate construction.

It added in a report that these units would be built in projects whose ground works already started or the construction permits were already approved, pointing out that there are hundreds of more housing units ready for construction as soon as the freeze ends but the ground works did not start and there is still no available information about them.
“If the government decides on a de facto ‘tacit freeze,’ and commits not to approve new construction but without renewing the freeze order, the settlers can still build 13,000 housing units, 5,000 of which are in isolated settlements east of the separation barrier,” Peace Now underlined.

In a separate incident, the Palestinian campaign for martyrs and missing persons strongly denounced the Israeli decision to establish a building in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem for holding the bodies of Palestinian martyrs.

The campaign said it intend to organize events in protest at this new racist decision which violates the rights of Palestinians.

It stressed that this decision should incite the international community to curb Israel’s violations against the Palestinians and pressure it to respect their human rights.