RAMALLAH, May 19, 2012 (WAFA) – Foreign Minister Riyad Malki Saturday condemned the Israeli government’s decision to expand the settlement of Ariel, southwest of Nablus, with 2100 housing units and considered the decision, in an interview with Voice of Palestine radio, “a blatant breach of law.”

The Israeli expansion project is expected to be carried out in two phases and the new homes will be built on Palestinian-owned land in the northern West Bank governorates of Qalqiliya and Tulkarem. The first phase includes the building of 700 housing units and the second one includes the building of 1400.

Malki stressed that the Palestinian leadership will take the issue of settlements to the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council in order to obtain a resolution requiring Israel to stop its settlement activities and land confiscation.

Speaking to Voice of Palestine on the same issue, settlements expert Khalil Toufakji said the Ariel settlement bloc principally aims to separate the northern West Bank from its southern regions through establishing a direct link between the eight settlements in the Ariel area sprawled over a large portion of Palestinian land and which connect Israel in the west with the occupied Jordan Valley in the east.

The settlement of Ariel, internationally considered illegal as the case with all settlements Israel has built in the occupied territories since 1967, is considered among the largest Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The Israeli government has named it a city due to its large Israeli population and has connected it to the Tel Aviv region with a four-lane highway that cuts right through the northern West Bank.

R.Q./M.S.