Palestinian group Hamas on Sunday called to resist Israeli plans to build more than 4,000 settlement units in the occupied West Bank.
Last week, Israeli authorities approved the construction of more than 4,000 settlement units, in a move that drew wide condemnation from several countries around the world.
In a statement, Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum called the settlement building a "new assault” against the Palestinian people.
"This affirms the racist and colonial nature of the occupying entity (Israel),” he said as he called to resist "these colonial and settlement projects with all means."
The spokesperson also called for ending all forms of normalization with Israel and "working for isolating the Zionist occupation and exposing its policies and supporting Palestinian steadfastness.”
The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is considered occupied territory under international law, thus making all Jewish settlements there illegal.
Meanwhile, Hamas on Saturday condemned Israeli settler calls to storm the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem, describing the move as a "dangerous escalation.”
"The calls to storm Al-Aqsa, on the anniversary of the Nakba, are a dangerous escalation, and a provocation to the sentiments of our people and our nation," Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said in a statement.
He warned that the settler provocations will trigger "an open clash that the Zionist occupation (Israel) will be fully responsible for its consequences.”
Settler groups have called on supporters to force their way into the Al-Aqsa complex on Sunday, which coincides with the Palestinian Nakba Day.
Observed on May 15 annually, Nakba Day, or the Catastrophe Day, marks the 1948 forced expulsion of nearly 800,000 Palestinians from their homes in historical Palestine to pave the way for the creation of the state of Israel.
Qassem described the recurring setter incursions into Al-Aqsa complex as "desperate attempts that will not succeed in imposing a fait accompli and changing the facts of history that Al-Aqsa Mosque is Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic."
He also called on the Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and in Israel to head to Al-Aqsa Mosque to "thwart the plans of the occupation."
Tensions have been running high across the occupied Palestinian territories since last month amid repeated Israeli arrest campaigns in the West Bank and settler incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in East Jerusalem.
Al-Aqsa Mosque is the world's third-holiest site for Muslims. Jews call the area the Temple Mount, claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It annexed the entire city in 1980, in a move never recognized by the international community.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned an Israeli court decision to approve a cable car project in the occupied East Jerusalem.
A ministry statement termed the cable car project as "an integral part of Israel’s Judaization campaign in Jerusalem with a view to eroding its Palestinian, Islamic and Christian identity.”
"The court decision is another proof that the court system is part of the Israeli occupation to serve its settlement and Judaization plans,” the ministry said.
It went on to appeal to the U.S. administration and the international community to pile pressure on Israel to halt the project in the occupied city.
Israel’s Supreme Court on Sunday rejected petitions against the construction of the project, which extends over 1.4 kilometers from the Mount of Olives area, adjacent to Jerusalem’s Old City, to the Al-Maghariba Gate, one of the Old City's main gates near Al-Aqsa Mosque.
