France condemns Israel for approving new settlement build

France condemned an Israeli decision to build hundreds of new settler homes in occupied Palestinian territories, a policy of settlement expansion that has been widely criticized by the international community as an obstacle to peace and a two-State solution with the Palestinians.

"France condemns the approval by Israeli authorities of plans to build several hundred housing units in West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements," the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement according to KUNA News Agency on Monday.

"No development on the ground can justify these types of measures," it added.

The provocative Israel decision is in line with its consistent defiance of the international community which regularly calls for the halting of settlement-building that has been ruled "illegal" by the International Court of Justice.

Moreover, in its latest report on Friday, the Middle East Quartet, made up of the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, urged Israel to halt settlement expansion and warned that this policy was making it more and more difficult to envisage a two-state solution to the conflict and the creation of a Palestinian State.

"As recalled in the last Quartet report, each announcement of settlement-building, which is illegal under international law, feeds tensions (and) directly threatens the two-State solution which is the only one that is capable of bringing a solution to the conflict," the French statement said.

The latest Israeli plan calls for building at least 560 housing units in occupied East Jerusalem's Maale Adumin settlement and hundreds more in other parts of occupied Palestinian land.

Source: MENA