<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="container content-width3" style="--font-size:20px;">
<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/netanyahu-pledges-build-more-illegal-settlements-after-teen-killed">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/netanyahu-pledges-build-more-illegal-settlements-after-teen-killed</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Netanyahu pledges to build more illegal
settlements after teen killed</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen
Clare Murphy</a></span> <span class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2019-08-08T18:41:40+00:00">8 August 2019</span></span>
</p>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div class="moz-reader-content line-height4 reader-show-element"
dir="ltr">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div>
<article>
<figure id="file-82386"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Benjamin Netanyahu <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-pledges-to-build-more-settlements-in-wake-of-west-bank-stabbing-attack-1.7651003">vowed</a>
on Thursday to build settlements across the occupied
West Bank hours after a young Israeli was found
fatally stabbed in the territory.</p>
<p>The Israeli prime minister was speaking at the
inauguration of a new neighborhood of 650 housing
units in Beit El, a West Bank settlement.</p>
<p>“These despicable terrorists, they come to uproot –
we come to plant. They come to destroy – we come to
build,” Netanyahu said.</p>
<p>“We will deepen our roots in our homeland, in all of
its parts,” he added.</p>
<p>In recent days the Israeli government approved 2,400
new housing units in the West Bank, eliciting
international admonishment. Israel has approved a <a
href="https://twitter.com/alhaq_org/status/1159500027263410177/photo/3">total
of 6,100</a> housing units in settlements so far
this year; 5,600 units were approved in all of 2018.</p>
<div id="file-82396">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">UN experts: Meaningful
action needed to stop Israeli settlement
building <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Palestine?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Palestine</a>
<a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Israel?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Israel</a>
<a href="https://t.co/3uLZifXwwR">pic.twitter.com/3uLZifXwwR</a></p>
— Al-Haq الحق (@alhaq_org) <a
href="https://twitter.com/alhaq_org/status/1159500027263410177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August
8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<p>“The expansion of settlements has no legal effect and
constitutes a flagrant violation of international
law,” Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations Middle
East envoy, <a
href="https://unsco.unmissions.org/statement-un-special-coordinator-mladenov-advancement-settlement-units-occupied-west-bank-0">stated</a>
on Wednesday.</p>
<p>“By advancing the effective annexation of the West
Bank, it undermines the chances for establishing a
Palestinian state based on relevant UN resolutions, as
part of a negotiated two-state solution,” Mladenov
added.</p>
<p>The European Union also took issue with the planned
settlement expansion.</p>
<p>“All settlement activity is illegal under
international law,” the EU <a
href="https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/66238/statement-spokesperson-latest-settlements%E2%80%99-approved-israeli-authorities_en">stated</a>.</p>
<h2>No claim of responsibility</h2>
<p>The body of Dvir Sorek, 19, was found on a road
outside the Migdal Oz settlement near the West Bank
city of Hebron. Sorek was killed “while neither armed
nor in uniform,” the Israeli military <a
href="https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1159374106455957504">stated</a>.</p>
<p>There was <a
href="https://www.apnews.com/af06209d9a094775aa7b98b4815192d4">no
immediate claim of responsibility</a> by Palestinian
factions.</p>
<p>The Israeli military <a
href="https://twitter.com/qudsn/status/1159384473525477376">raided</a>
the Palestinian village of Beit Fajjar near Hebron on
Thursday.</p>
<p>Sorek would be the seventh Israeli to be killed by
Palestinians so far this year if Palestinians were in
fact responsible. Additionally, a Palestinian from the
West Bank living in Ashkelon, southern Israel, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-escalates-deadly-attacks-gaza">died</a>
after his apartment was hit by a rocket fired from
Gaza in early May.</p>
<p>Two Israeli men, a soldier and a rabbi, were slain
outside Ariel, another settlement in the West Bank, in
March. The suspected Palestinian assailant, Omar Amin
Abu Leila, 19, was <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-kills-four-palestinians-west-bank">killed
two days later</a> when occupation forces stormed a
home in which he was hiding.</p>
<p>Seventy-five Palestinians have died by Israeli fire
in 2019.</p>
<h2>Grandson of settlement founder</h2>
<p>Israeli media <a
href="https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5565811,00.html">noted</a>
that Sorek’s grandfather, Benyamin Herling, was shot
and killed near the northern West Bank city of Nablus
in October 2000.</p>
<p>Herling co-founded the Kedumim settlement.</p>
<p>Since 2003, Palestinians in the nearby village of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/kafr-qaddum">Kafr Qaddum</a>
have been <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/well-never-give/17266">denied
access</a> to the main road leading to Nablus and
other towns.</p>
<p>The military shut down the road on the pretext of
providing security to settlers living in Kedumim,
which is built on land belonging to Palestinians in
Kafr Qaddum.</p>
<p>For several years, villagers have held <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/israel-jails-village-leader-over-peaceful-protests-against-settler-land-theft">weekly
protests</a> over the closure of the road and the
expansion of Kedumim. Israeli forces have violently
repressed those protests.</p>
<p>Last month, Abd al-Rahman Shtaiwi, 9, was <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-shoots-boy-head-and-lies-about-it">shot
in the head</a> by an Israeli soldier while sitting
outside a home in Kafr Qaddum.</p>
<p>Protests were winding down in the village at the
time, though the child was not taking part in them.</p>
<p>“Scans show dozens of fragments in the child’s head
resulting in serious brain damage, from which he is
unlikely to recover, even if he survives,” <a
href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24862&LangID=E">according
to</a> Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights.</p>
<br>
</article>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>