Israel approves 695 homes in West Bank settlement, outpost

Feb 22, 2012, 19:46 GMT

Tel Aviv - Israel on Wednesday approved the construction of 695 new housing units in and near the Jewish settlement of Shiloh, in the heart of the West Bank, north-east of Ramallah, a settlement watchdog group said.

Some 121 of them already exist - 93 in an outpost, Shvut Rachel, set up just outside the settlement without government authorization, said the Israeli group Peace Now.

They were retroactively 'legalized' by the Israeli authorities, in a deal negotiated with settler leaders.

The remaining 574 units OK'd by a West Bank planning council are yet to be built and need further approval.

The United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Robert Serry, issued a statement condemning the blueprint.

'Today's announcement by Israel to approve a large number of new units deep inside the occupied Palestinian territory in the settlement of Shilo and retroactively legitimize (several) in a nearby outpost is deplorable and moves us further away from the goal of a two-state solution,' he said.

Peace Now condemned the move a 'victory for law breakers.'

'They legalized the illegal and on top of that they gave them a bonus of more construction,' a spokesman, Lior Amihai, told dpa.

Under international law, all settlements built on occupied land are illegal, but Israeli law regards only unauthorized outposts - built without permits - as illegal.