Israel plans largest illegal settlement

Zionist regime is planning to construct around 2000 new houses in its settlements in the West Bank during 2008, the largest since the 1990s.

The Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot said Wednesday that the regime will construct 1908 new units in major settlements block in the West Bank.

This newly announced settlement expansion is the largest since the wave of Israeli settlement activity in the 1990s when Israel constructed 5000 housing units per year in the West Bank settlements.

The report of the construction was announced only two days after the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank was 'not consistent' with Israel's obligations under the international road map peace plan.

Palestinians, the international community, and a large number of Israelis, believe the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are clearly illegal, and all should be uprooted as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu Al-Ghit criticized the Israeli settlement activity on Wednesday. He told reporters at a press conference that the settlement activity in the West Bank and the occupied city of al-Quds is damaging to the peace process.

The Egyptian official welcomed the recent UN decision of considering the Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and al-Quds as a violation of international law.

Also on Wednesday, an Israeli wrecking crew knocked down home of a Palestinian in an Arab neighborhood of al-Quds for the second time, part of a decades-old policy to limit Palestinian population growth in the city.

The demolition Wednesday was one of more than 300 in Arab neighborhoods of the city since 2004.

Israeli authorities claim lack of building permits which is virtually impossible to obtain, as the reason for the demolitions.