Bethlehem/PNN/
Israel has approved a plan to set up a new illegal settlement neighborhood on the northwestern edge of occupied West Bank
.
The plan envisions the creation of as many as 107 new settler units on the land that belongs to the two Palestinian villages of Ya’bad and ‘Anin, the Palestine Information Center news website and network reported on Tuesday.
The new construction plan “stipulates the changing of the classification of the targeted Palestinian lands from an open public area and agricultural land to a first- and second-class residential area in line with the Israeli classification,” it said.
Also on Tuesday, Israeli forces raided the Palestinian village of Sebastia, which is located near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, razing down a Palestinian-owned house in the area.
Witnesses said the forces entered the village with a steam shovel before beginning to destroy the house that belonged to Mohammed Abu Al Saud, a local Palestinian.
The house used to accommodate eight people, including women and children, who were rendered displaced as a result.
The Israeli regime occupied the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem , in a heavily-Western-backed war in 1967.
Ever since, it has dotted the territory with hundreds of illegal settlements that have come to house hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers.
Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.