ISRAEL is inviting bids to build over 1,000 settler homes in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the housing ministry said on Sunday, ahead of peace talks with the Palestinian.
‘Tenders will be published’ later in the week for 793 units in annexed east Jerusalem and 394 elsewhere in the West Bank, the ministry said in a statement, three days before the next round of talks.
Housing Minister Uri Ariel, of the far-right Jewish Home party, dismissed international criticism of settlement building on occupied Palestinian land as illegal and an obstacle to peace.
‘No country in the world accepts diktats from other countries on where it is allowed to build or not,’ he said in the statement.
‘We shall continue to market apartments and build throughout the country.’
The statement said that plots are to be offered in Har Homa and Gilo, both on east Jerusalem’s southern outskirts and in Pisgat Zeev, on the city’s northern edge.
Tenders would also be invited for homes in Ariel, in the northern West Bank, in Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, and in Efrata and Beitar Ilit, around Bethlehem, it said.
The US State Department said last week that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators would resume talks in Jerusalem tomorrow on ending their long-standing conflict.
They resumed direct negotiations in Washington last month ending a three-year hiatus after painstaking US mediation.
The last talks in 2010 broke down on the issue of settlement building.
Palestinian negotiator Mohammed Shtayeh said the latest move is proof of Israel’s real intentions.
‘It is clear that the Israeli government is only interested in illegal settlement building, throwing away American and international efforts to resume negotiations,’ he said in a statement.
Lior Amihai, of settlement watchdog Peace Now, said that if negotiations collapsed against a background of Israeli settlement activity, Israel could find itself in a worse situation than it was before talks.
‘We need to push and encourage the negotiations,’ he said. ‘It’s a pity that the government chooses to place more obstacles in the way.’
Israel’s chief negotiator in the talks, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, was to meet with Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon and Science and Technology Minister Yaakov Peri, a former head of the Shin Bet security agency, later on Sunday to approve a first batch of 26 prisoners to be freed ahead of tomorrow’s talks.
A total of 104 long-term Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners, in jail since before the 1993 Oslo peace accords, are to be freed in four stages, depending on progress in the talks.
Egyptian authorities have cancelled a planned visit to Gaza by the Turkish Prime Minister, a popular Egyptian news site said Sunday.
Youm7 (The Seventh Day) quoted Egyptian diplomatic sources as saying that Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to the Gaza Strip has been cancelled following the military ousting of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi and the subsequent change in government.
The Gaza trip was also cancelled because of Erdogan’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Youm7 reported.
A senior official in the ruling Hamas movement said in June that Erdogan was due to visit the coastal territory in July, but the Turkish leader’s press secretary had stressed that the date was still undecided.
Erdogan previously said his visit to Gaza would be aimed at pushing for an end to Israel’s blockade on the tiny coastal territory, which has been in place since 2006.
Egypt’s state prosecutor said last week that ousted President Mohamed Mursi is being detained for questioning over suspected collaboration with Hamas in attacks on police stations and prison breaks in early 2011.
Hamas condemned the move, as being ‘based on the premise that the Hamas movement is hostile,’ its spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP in response.
‘This is a dangerous development, which confirms that the current powers in Egypt are giving up on national causes and even using these issues to deal with other parties – first among them the Palestinian cause.’
• Turkey plans to pull out troops from the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon UNIFIL, Turkish and UN sources said Saturday, while denying that the decision is linked to the kidnapping of two pilots.
‘An approximately 250-person engineering construction force will not be actively involved in UNIFIL in the coming period,’ a Turkish diplomatic source said on condition of anonymity.
The decision comes as two Turkish Airlines pilots are being held by kidnappers in Lebanon. They were seized early Friday on a road leading out of Beirut airport, in an apparent bid to secure the release of Lebanese pilgrims held in Syria.
The abduction drew condemnation from Turkey which urged its citizens to leave Lebanon amid mounting fears that the country is being dragged further into the Syrian conflict.
Both Turkish and UN sources said the troop withdrawal decision was made long before the kidnapping.
‘On the 6th of August, we were informed by the department of peacekeeping operations that the Turkish government had decided to withdraw the Turkish engineering construction company,’ UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told AFP.
The Turkish source confirmed that the pull-out decision was made in conjunction with UNIFIL’s own needs.
‘The mandate of our force was extended in early July. At that time, it was also decided that there would be some changes in the configuration of our force, but the decision on this was entirely made in line with UNIFIL’s own needs and it has nothing to do with the latest incident,’ Tenenti said.
A previously unknown group calling itself Zuwwar Imam Ali al-Rida claimed responsibility for the abduction, saying it was carried out to secure the release of nine Lebanese kidnapped in Syria last year.
Turkey will however maintain its presence in UNIFIL with the maritime task force.
‘Our units at the maritime task force, whose numbers periodically vary between 100 and 300, will remain in charge,’ the Turkish diplomatic source said.
The UN spokesperson described the move as a regular process.
‘It’s up to countries to decide on contribution, but it’s important to know that this is a constant process in all peacekeeping missions, when you see troops decreasing or other countries increasing.
‘What’s important for the mission is that our operational capabilities are not changed, and they are maintained on the ground, so that the effectiveness of the mission will not change,’ he added.
‘UNIFIL always has adequate preparations to ensure that the operations continue without any kind of interruption.’
UNIFIL was established in 1978 in south Lebanon following Israel’s first invasion of the country that year.
Its mission was extended and enlarged after Israel’s war on Lebanon in 2006, with a current 13,000-strong force sourced from several countries.
Turkey is the first Muslim country to provide reinforcements for the mission, in a bid to keep the peace along the hostile border, although no UN mission is situated on Israel’s side of the border.
Lebanon and Israel remain technically in a state of war, with Israel having launched a number of devastating invasions and wars on the country since 1978, despite UNIFIL’s presence.
