Netanyah's green light for more illegal settlements, prisoner talks stall

Israel has made it known that it intends to push ahead with more settlements on the West Bank despite pressure from the US to end any further expansion plans. This from PIC

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Sunday that Israel’s persistence in the expansion of its settlements proves that US president Barack Obama failed to curb the occupation and lost his credibility regarding the settlement process in the region.

In a press statement to the Palestinian information center (PIC), spokesman Abu Zuhri stressed that the peaceful settlement option is a term that only exists in the minds of those who wager on it, while Israel on the ground is persistent in judaizing the Palestinian lands.

The spokesman also deplored, in another context, the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatuses for turning back Israeli settlers who mistakenly entered West Bank cities, saying that this behavior is the biggest example of the size of the security coordination between the PA and the Israeli occupation.

The Israeli Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported that Benjamin Netanyahu would approve on Sunday during a cabinet meeting a plan to construct hundreds of settlement units in the West Bank.

There is still no news on the outcome of talks in Egypt aimed at securing the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange of Israeli prisoner of war Shalit. See the interview above with the speaker of the Palestinian parliament recently released from an Israeli prison.

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