The sanction for 5,700 housing units was described by a Palestinian government official as an “open war against the Palestinian people.” He added that “all settler colonialism in all the occupied Palestinian territories is illegitimate and illegal”
While the 9,000-unit settlement plan in Atarot was put on hold on Monday, another settlement plan inside East Jerusalem to build 473 homes near two Palestinian neighborhoods was announced on the same day
The new settlement plan approved by the Israeli Jerusalem municipality will permanently cut off Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from Jerusalem, and makes way for the annexation and Israelization of all of Jerusalem in the future
According to Haaretz, security forces in the country have adopted a policy of not intervening during most such attacks on Palestinians by the settlers to create a “permissive atmosphere” to allow them to “let off steam”
The group of three experts also expressed grave concern at the heightened rate of settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories by the state of Israel