PARIS: France on Thursday called on Israel to reconsider recently issued approvals for more than 2,000 settler homes in the occupied West Bank, saying they would violate international law.
Israel’s Higher Planning Committee approved 2,191 new housing units in Israeli settlements on Dec. 25 and 26, though no building permits have been issued yet.
“France condemns this decision, which expands settlement activity in the West Bank,” the French foreign office said in a statement.
The settlements undermined the conditions for a two-state solution, “the only way to ensure a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and heightens tensions” it said, calling on the Israeli authorities to reconsider the decisions.
Some 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War that are also home to more than 2.6 million Palestinians.
Settlements are one of the thorniest issues in efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, frozen since 2014.
Most countries consider all settlements that Israel has built in captured territory to be illegal. Israel disputes this and says their future should be determined in peace talks with the Palestinians.
While Israel’s settlement projects have regularly drawn condemnation from the Palestinians and in Europe, the US administration under President Donald Trump has taken a largely uncritical public stand.
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France urges Israel to reconsider settler home approvals in West Bank
France urges Israel to reconsider settler home approvals in West Bank
Thousands stage pro-Gaza rally in Istanbul
- Thousands joined a New Year’s Day rally for Gaza in Istanbul Thursday, waving Palestinian and Turkish flags and calling for an end to the violence in the tiny war-torn territory
ISTANBUL: Thousands joined a New Year’s Day rally for Gaza in Istanbul Thursday, waving Palestinian and Turkish flags and calling for an end to the violence in the tiny war-torn territory.
Demonstrators gathered in freezing temperatures under cloudless blue skies to march to the city’s Galata Bridge for a rally under the slogan: “We won’t remain silent, we won’t forget Palestine,” an AFP reporter at the scene said.
More than 400 civil society organizations were present at the rally, one of whose organizers was Bilal Erdogan, the youngest son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Police sources and Anadolou state news agency said some 500,000 people had joined the march at which there were speeches and a performance by Lebanese-born singer Maher Zain of his song “Free Palestine.”
“We are praying that 2026 will bring goodness for our entire nation and for the oppressed Palestinians,” said Erdogan, who chairs the board of the Ilim Yayma Foundation, an educational charity that was one of the organizers of the march.
Turkiye has been one of the most vocal critics of the war in Gaza and helped broker a recent ceasefire that halted the deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023.
But the fragile October 10 ceasefire has not stopped the violence with more than more than 400 Palestinians killed since it took hold.
Demonstrators gathered in freezing temperatures under cloudless blue skies to march to the city’s Galata Bridge for a rally under the slogan: “We won’t remain silent, we won’t forget Palestine,” an AFP reporter at the scene said.
More than 400 civil society organizations were present at the rally, one of whose organizers was Bilal Erdogan, the youngest son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Police sources and Anadolou state news agency said some 500,000 people had joined the march at which there were speeches and a performance by Lebanese-born singer Maher Zain of his song “Free Palestine.”
“We are praying that 2026 will bring goodness for our entire nation and for the oppressed Palestinians,” said Erdogan, who chairs the board of the Ilim Yayma Foundation, an educational charity that was one of the organizers of the march.
Turkiye has been one of the most vocal critics of the war in Gaza and helped broker a recent ceasefire that halted the deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023.
But the fragile October 10 ceasefire has not stopped the violence with more than more than 400 Palestinians killed since it took hold.
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