Ramallah, January 3 (RHC)-- The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) says Israeli officials approved plans for the construction of more than 10,000 homes in the West Bank last year, despite the international outcry against the Tel Aviv regime’s land expropriation and settlement expansion policies in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The organization, in a report published on Wednesday, said Israeli authorities gave the green light for 10,298 new units, of which 2,600 were built in East Jerusalem.

The report added that Israeli authorities approved a new settlement – called the Amihai settlement – near the West Bank city of Nablus, along with a new neighborhood in the Gush Etzion settlement near Bethlehem, situated about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) south of Jerusalem.

Israeli officials confiscated 3,439 dunams (3.439 square kilometers) of private Palestinian land in the West Bank, including 1,182 dunams (1.182 square kilometers) in the strategic Jordan Valley.
 
The report further noted that Israeli forces uprooted some 7,600 olive, palm and almond trees in the West Bank last year.  It also stated that Israeli authorities demolished 538 homes and structures in 2018, while issuing demolition orders for another 460 structures.  The demolitions, the report highlighted, resulted in the displacement of some 1,300 Palestinians, including 225 children.

Meanwhile, the anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now says figures, gathered from official Israeli sources, show an increase in the construction of settler units in 2018 and a sharp spike in planning for future construction.

It added that the trend has only deepened Palestinian mistrust in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump as it says it is preparing to roll out a so-called peace plan.

Less than a month before Trump took office, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2334, calling on Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.”