Israeli Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, said on Wednesday said that construction of the Separation Wall in the West Bank, lining up with settlement blocs, and enforcing them should be resumed, Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
During his tour in Gush Atzion settlement bloc, near the West Bank city of Hebron, Mofaz stated that ‘Settlements should be reinforced in the West Bank, especially the settlements blocks of Bietar Elite, Gush Etzion, Maali Adumim, Biet Arieh, Ariel and Jordan Valley settlements.
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Mofaz’s statements came one day after US secretary of States Condoleezza Rice’s demanded Israel to abide to its commitments to halt settlement expansion in the West Bank in exchange of disarmament of the Palestinian Resistance factions.
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This tour is the first one for Mofaz since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip last September.
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The Israeli Center of Statistics reported that there are at least 250 thousand Israeli
settlers in the West Bank
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Settlers of the Gush Atzion settlement Bloc told Mofaz that they “are worried” that the Separation Wall surrounding the Bloc will limit its expansion.
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Meanwhile, Advisor to the Prime Minister Lior Goldstein told Jerusalem’s mayor, Uri Lopolianksi, and the Rabbi Assaf Atzor, the head of the Jerusalem Religious Council, that they must establish a committee as soon as possible, in order to elect a Chief Rabbi for Jerusalem; the city has been without one for the past two years.
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Also, head of the Gush Etzion regional council Shaul Goldstein, said that the settlers are concerned that under the pretext of “a security fence” a political fence will be established, and added that the council intends to fights the issue. “We will not give up on our settlements”, he said.ÂÂ
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Settler Shimon Karniel from the settlement of Kfar Etzion told the Israeli online daily Ynetnews that “This fence will choke us and disrupt lives that have been built here for years”.
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Karniel stated that the Palestinians should be inside the Wall in this area too, as the situation is in the rest of the West Bank, adding that it will cut the settlement area, and the Palestinian areas in the middle, “which will increase hatred between the two sides, and harm Israel’s security”.
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The Israeli Peace Now movement slammed that statements of Mofaz and considered them as a direct violation to the US backed Road Map Plan.
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The EJ-1 (East Jerusalem 1) project, which intends to connect Maali Adumim settlement with Jerusalem, cutting through and separating the Palestinian areas, and the continuation of settlement constructions violates the Road Map Plan, Peace Now Secretary General Yariv Oppenheimer said.
