Settlers control 42 per cent of West Bank, says rights group

11.50am

JERUSALEM - A leading Israeli rights group said in a report released on Monday that Jewish settlements effectively control nearly 42 per cent of the West Bank, where Palestinians want to establish a state.

The B'Tselem report showed that while built-up areas in settlements took up only 1.7 per cent of the 5800sq km of the West Bank, the figure reached 6.8 per cent when their broader "municipal" boundaries were factored in.

Jewish regional councils that administer the Israeli settlements in the West Bank claimed another 35.1 per cent of the area's territory, the report said.

"Thus, a total of 41.9 per cent of the area in the West Bank is controlled by the settlements," said B'Tselem, which aims to promote human rights in the occupied territories.

Palestinians, now under limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, want to build their future state in the two areas, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

Most countries view Jewish settlements as illegal. Settlers say they have a birthright to territory they see as part of the biblical Land of Israel.

B'Tselem said the settlements, a main source of Palestinian grievances during 35 years of Israeli occupation and a major stumbling block in now-stalled peace talks, have resulted in "extensive human right violations".

It said Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank was reminiscent of the old apartheid regime in South Africa. The group called on Israel to stop granting incentives to Israelis to move to settlements, and to dismantle them.

The fate of settlements was among the final status issues on the agenda of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that stalled before a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted in September 2000.

Palestinians have demanded that Israel freeze settlement building after the two sides signed their first interim peace deal in 1993.

Instead, successive Israeli governments built thousands of new housing units for settlers between 1993 and 2000. Jewish settler groups say more than 200,000 settlers live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, home to more than three million Palestinians.

B'Tselem, which includes Jews living in and around Arab East Jerusalem in its figures, puts the number of settlers at 380,000.

- REUTERS

Feature: Middle East

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