TEL AVIV, Israel _ Israel will build 2,500 new housing units in the West Bank, the country's prime minister and defense minister said Tuesday, beginning to unleash pent-up demand following eight years of conflict with the Obama administration over Israeli building anywhere beyond the 1967 border.
That comes days after the municipality unfroze plans for more than 500 apartments in contested areas of Jerusalem, most of them for Jewish residents. The government had shelved settlement plans in the final months of the Obama administration, preferring to wait for a more favorable reception in Washington once Donald Trump took office Jan. 20.
"We're going back to normal life" in the West Bank, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in an emailed statement Tuesday announcing the building plans.
Most of the units will be in settlement blocs close to the border that Israel expects to keep in any eventual peace agreement with the Palestinians. The plan includes about 100 apartments in the settlement of Beit El. President Trump's ambassador-designate to Israel, attorney David Friedman, is president of American Friends of Bet El Institutions.
Lieberman also will seek Cabinet backing to build an industrial area for Palestinians near Hebron. The industrial zone will be among the biggest of its kind in the West Bank and will include infrastructure for warehouses and fuel storage, according to the statement.
Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi called the plan a "war crime" and "flagrant violation of international law."
"It is evident that Israel is exploiting the inauguration of the new American administration to escalate its violations and the prevention of any existence of a Palestinian state," she said in an emailed statement.
