JERUSALEM: Home starts in Jewish settlements rose by a “drastic” 70 percent in the first half of 2013, jeopardising peace talks, an Israeli NGO and a Palestinian official said yesterday.
Anti-settlement group Peace Now said in a statement that between January and June construction started on 1,708 new homes in the occupied West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, compared with 995 in the first half of 2012.
Billing the figures as a “drastic rise,” Peace Now said 86 percent of the new construction was carried out in areas where tenders were not required, meaning that building activity did not technically flout the quiet freeze on tenders Israel reportedly agreed to this year as Washington pushed for a resumption of direct peace talks.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP the settlement building is “destroying the peace process” relaunched with US prodding in July, and that Israel is “fully responsible for this situation and its outcome.”
Peace Now’s Hagit Ofran concurred.
“Fortunately the Palestinians did not leave the talks because of the continued construction in settlements, but there is a chance that if this policy continues, then it will be very, very hard to hold on to the talks,” she said. AFP
