The Palestinian Prime Minister, Muhammad Shtayyeh, has warned of the repercussions of the unprecedented settlement steps taken by the Israeli government, describing it as an escalating and intense attack plan in the next 10 weeks, and said that the settlement attack seeks to impose a new status quo before US President Donald Trump leaves office in January / Next January.
Shtayyeh said during the weekly meeting of the Palestinian government in Ramallah that the countries of the world should seriously stand in the ranks of the unprecedented and dangerous developments of the settlement project for Israel.
The Palestinian official’s speech comes two days before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo starts a visit to Israel, which includes a visit to the Sigot settlement on the lands of the Palestinian city of Al-Bireh. The Palestinian Prime Minister said that Pompeo's visit to the settlement “will not give legitimacy to the Zionist colonies.”
A settlement in Jerusalem
Yesterday, Sunday, the Israeli Planning and Land Authority announced the launch of a tender for building 1257 new settlement units in the Givat Hamatos neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
The Israeli "Peace Now" organization considered that the aim behind the tender is to isolate occupied Jerusalem from the southern West Bank, and to destroy any hope of implementing the two-state solution.
In a related context, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nikolay Mladenov, called on the Israeli authorities to reverse their decision to open the door for bidding for the construction of the settlement of Givat Hamatos, located between the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
In a statement, Mladenov expressed his concern about this issue, and said that if construction takes place, this will seriously harm the negotiations on the basis and principle of the two-state solution, and Jerusalem is the capital of the two states, and will prevent the establishment of a continuous Palestinian state in the future, and the UN official stressed that settlement in The occupied West Bank is illegal under international law.