Israeli education minister Naftali Bennett says the ongoing evacuation of the Amona settlement in the Palestinian lands is a prelude to annexation of the West Bank.
"From the ruins of Amona we will build a new settlement,” Bennett told the Knesset on Wednesday, citing a future legislation which will legalize some 4,000 settlements in the West Bank. "From the defeat in the court we will establish a new legal regime that will regulate all of the settlements, and from this defeat we will start applying the sovereignty" over the West Bank, he added.
Bennett's remarks came after the Israeli supreme court declared the West Bank as Palestinian property, with the legislation expected to be passed on Monday night.
On Wednesday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced plans to establish a new settlement in the occupied West Bank to accommodate settlers evicted from the Amona outpost.
The announcement was made as Israeli forces clashed with settlers while evicting them from the Amona outpost. A few hours earlier, Israel's supreme court had rejected a request by Tel Aviv to relocate some of the settlers to a plot of land close to Amona.
The EU has warned that the new wave of Israeli settlements in the West Bank marks a "very worrying trend” that may jeopardize the so-called two-state solution to the decades-long conflict in the region.
Since the January 20 inauguration of US President Donald Trump, Tel Aviv has launched a major settlement expansion drive, including plans for the construction of 3,000 new settler units in the West Bank.
Over 230 settlements have been constructed since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. The illegal structures have hampered attempts to establish peace in the Middle East, Presstv reported.
In December 2016, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2334 that denounced the Israeli settlements as a "flagrant violation of international law."
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