Israel orders more homes as prisoners freed
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered officials yesterday to press ahead with plans to build 3500 more homes for Jewish settlers, hours after Israel freed 26 Palestinian prisoners as part of USbrokered peace efforts.
Netanyahu’s step was seen as a way to placate hardliners who criticised him as the inmates, convicted of killing Israelis, basked in a heroes’ welcome from hundreds of relatives and wellwishers in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli leader issued instructions to market 1500 settler homes and pursue plans for a further 2000, an official in Netanyahu’s office said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Israel’s Interior Ministry announced earlier in the day that the 1500 units would be built in Ramat Shlomo, a settlement in an area of the occupied West Bank that Israel considers part of Jerusalem.
Those plans were first announced in 2010, clouding a visit to Israel at the time by US Vice-President Joe Biden, who condemned the project, which was subsequently shelved.
Israel announced last December it would proceed with the construction, but froze the move again before a visit by US President Barack Obama in March this year.
The other 2000 settler housing units would be built in other parts of the West Bank, the official said, adding that: ‘‘Netanyahu had pushed the settlement plans because of the prisoner release.’’ A senior official said those 2000 units were only in the planning stages at this time.
The Palestinians, who want to establish a state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, territories captured by Israel in a 1967 war, condemned the settlement plans.
‘‘This policy is destructive for the peace process,’’ said Nabil Abu Rdeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon praised Israel’s release of the prisoners, but condemned the settlement activity as ‘‘contrary to international law and constitutes an obstacle to peace’’, a statement from his office said.
Hours before the decision to expand settlements, Palestinian inmates boarded buses for home outside Israel’s Ofer prison in the West Bank, and dozens of Israelis protested against the release.
One held a sign with the photographs of some of the Israelis they had killed. ‘‘The victims of terror are turning in their graves,’’ one placard read.
‘‘Our heroes are coming home, long live the prisoners,’’ crowds chanted outside the office of Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Issa Abed Rabbo, convicted of murdering two Israeli hikers in 1984, was carried through the alleys of the biblical town of Bethlehem on the shoulders of cheering Palestinians as fireworks went off and patriotic songs blared.
‘‘My feeling is that of a commander returning from battle, carrying a banner of victory and freedom,’’ Abed Rabbo said.
The prisoners were released as part of a limited amnesty demanded by the Palestinians to revive longstalled statehood negotiations.