A spokesperson from the Turkish Foreign Ministry criticized Israel's plans to build 3,500 housing units in the occupied West Bank, condemning it for further expanding the occupation of Palestinian territories.
"The plan approved today (March 6) by the Israeli authorities for the construction of 3,500 housing units in the West Bank is a further expansion of the occupation of the Palestinian territories,” Öncü Keçeli said in a statement.
Keçeli said that Israel must immediately halt its plans, as he pointed to the need for defining Israel’s "crimes in the most accurate terminology” to prevent it from further violating international law.
"In this respect, it is not enough for the international community to refer to the occupation activities in the West Bank as ‘illegal settlements.’ What is in question is the forcible confiscation by Israel of land that legally belongs to the Palestinian people," it said.
According to Palestinian figures, about 725,000 settlers live in 176 Jewish-only settlements and 186 outposts in the occupied West Bank.
As Israeli settlements expand under the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinians say the violence from radical Israeli settlers has reached a fever pitch.
Under international law, all Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are considered illegal.
Palestinians who have left their homes say that attacks on their grazing lands and violence from settlement outposts – many of which are recently established on hilltops ringing rural Palestinian villages – prompted them to pull up stakes permanently.
Experts say the trend is transforming the map of the West Bank and further undermining the prospects for an independent Palestinian state.
The Palestinians seek the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip – areas annexed by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war – for their future state.
The affected villages are mostly reliant on herding and agriculture for their livelihoods. Nearly all of the communities reported having to sell part of their livestock and 70% have had to borrow money to pay for artificial feed after settler incursions cut off access to their grazing lands, the report says.
Over a third of the residents have reported changing their livelihoods, some giving up shepherding altogether.
Palestinians who have been displaced report that Israeli authorities, charged with administering the territory, rarely respond to instances of settler violence.
