Israel has seized around 2,500 acres of Palestinian land, destroyed 500 buildings and constructed eight new Jewish settlements in 2017, Palestine's Land Research Centre has said.
According to a report prepared by the centre, Israel seized Palestinian lands with “military aims” and the “aim to construct Jewish settlement units” in the occupied West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem.
The report also recorded 900 incidents of violence and attacks of Israeli forces in the third holiest place for Muslims –Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Israeli and Palestinian law institutions have said that the activities of Jewish settlement in West Bank and East Jerusalem have increased by three times in 2017 compared with the previous year.
Peace Now movement also announced that Israeli government approved the construction of 1,982 settlement units in 2015, 2,629 settlement units in 2016 and this figure increased to 6,500 in 2017.
Israeli Minister of Public Works and Housing Yoav Galant announced on 24 December a plan to build 300,000 new settlement units in East Jerusalem under the name of "housing on the land of united Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.”
Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered to be one of the main obstacles ahead of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that was halted in April 2014.
The Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently accelerated the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
It has been stated that Israel has established 131 settlements in the West Bank, 10 in East Jerusalem and 116 in the regions of the Hill of the West Bank since 1967.
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