U.S.: New Settlement Construction Hurt Peace Efforts

By Natasha Mozgovaya (Haaretz) and Haaretz Service March 14, 2011

Israel’s continued West Bank settlement construction runs counter efforts to resume Middle East peace negotiations, a statement by the U.S. State Department said on Sunday, a day after the government approved 500 new settlement housing units as a response to deadly Itamar attack.

On Saturday, the ministerial committee on settlement affairs decided in a nighttime meeting to approve the construction of 500 new West Bank houses, a move that came in response to a deadly attack on a family of five in the settlement of Itamar on Friday.

Earlier Sunday, an aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that Israel’s decision to approve the construction of hundreds of housing units in several West Bank settlements was ” unacceptable and we oppose it.”

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