European Union: Expansion of Jewish Settlements in the West Bank in 2023 was Unprecedented

The European Union's representative office in the Palestinian territories announced that since the Oslo Accords in 1993, Israel has constructed the highest number of housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank in the past year. In a statement released on Friday, August 12, it noted that last year, plans for the construction of 12,349 housing units in the occupied West Bank were approved and implementation began, while plans for 18,333 housing units in the occupied territory of East Jerusalem have also progressed. According to the EU representative office, a total of 30,682 housing units have been approved for construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and are in the execution stages. This agency added that this is the highest figure for the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories since 2012 and will severely damage the two-state solution aimed at ending the Palestine-Israel crisis. The agency stated: 'The European Union has repeatedly called on the Israeli government to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements. The EU's position has always been that these settlements are illegal, and the approval of their development plans in 2023 by the Israeli government calls into question the prospect of implementing the two-state solution.' All Jewish settlements in the West Bank that were occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, regardless of whether they were built with government decisions or without permission, are considered illegal under international law and UN resolutions. The International Court of Justice: Israel's presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is illegal. A small portion of these settlements were initially built without the Israeli government's permission, often in the form of tents or prefabricated houses, but have since been connected to public water and electricity networks, and it appears that the government has taken no action to dismantle them. Official statistics show that, apart from East Jerusalem, approximately 490,000 people currently live in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, while the Palestinian population in this area is about three million. Far-right parties in the Israeli coalition government are pressuring for the development of Jewish settlements. Since the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip, tensions and conflicts between Jewish settlers and the Israeli army on one side and Palestinian residents of the West Bank on the other have intensified. Reports from Agence France-Presse based on statistics published by the Palestinian Authority's health department show that at least 594 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army or armed settlers since October 7 of last year. The Israeli government claims that during the same period, 17 Israelis, including military and police personnel, have been killed in attacks by Palestinians in the West Bank. The outcome of the historic Oslo Accords in 1993 was the recognition of the state of Israel in exchange for the recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority to manage internal affairs in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. Jan Egeland, a Norwegian diplomat and human rights activist who was one of the architects of the Oslo Accords, told Agence France-Presse last year that he believes this agreement is dead.