ANKARA, Thursday, January 21, 2021 (WAFA) – Turkey Wednesday condemned the Israeli occupation authorities’ plan to construct 2,500 new colonial settler units in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

“We strongly condemn the step taken by Israel with the tenders issued today (January 20) for the construction of additional illegal settlements consisting of 2572 housing units, 2112 of which are in the West Bank and 460 in East Jerusalem,” the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press statement.

The ministry added that Israel, by such actions, intends to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian State with geographical integrity and change the status of Jerusalem.

“The increase in Israel's such and similar actions ahead of every election to prevent the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian State based on the two-state solution and to change the status of Jerusalem, reflect a dangerous mindset of opportunism. Thus, it is also attempted to block the ways of establishing peace in the region,” it said.

The ministry, in the statement, called on the international community to “take action in order to protect the rights of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Territories against this mindset of the Israeli Administration as the occupying force.”

The Israeli occupation authorities have invited tenders for a further 2,112 units in the West Bank and 460 in East Jerusalem, on the eve of Joe Biden’s swearing-in as US president.

There are over 700,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The number of settlers has almost tripled since the Oslo Accords of 1993, when settlers’ number estimated 252,000.

Israel’s nation-state law that passed last July stated that building and strengthening the settlements is a “national interest.”

K.F.