RAMALLAH, January 24, 2017 (WAFA) – The cabinet said on Tuesday that Israeli plans to expand settlements in occupied East Jerusalem are a serious defiance of the Security Council.

The Security Council voted last month, 14 to nothing with one abstention, on a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and calling for a halt to all settlement activities.

The cabinet said in a statement issued after its weekly meeting in Ramallah that the decision by the Israeli West Jerusalem municipality to build 566 housing units in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, “only two days after Donald Trump was sworn-in as US president, is a serious and obvious defiance of the Security Council that voted against Israeli settlements in the Palestinian land and condemned all Israeli settlement expansion.”

The cabinet also condemned Israeli plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, starting with the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to the east of Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah told the cabinet that annexing Ma’ale Adumim “is part of a plan to abort any chance to establish the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

The cabinet statement said annexing Ma’ale Adumim and expanding settlements in East Jerusalem “have dangerous demographic and geographic implications aimed at increasing the number settlers vis-à-vis Palestinians in the occupied city.”

It said this plans “would kill any talk about peaceful options and would augment the conflict.”

M.K.