Israel’s Settlement Council in the occupied West Bank has announced the development of 164 new housing units in Neve Daniel settlement to the west of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem,  reports Quds Press.

Speaking to Middle East Monitor, Hassan Breijah the Director of the Anti-Wall and Settlement Commission said: ‘This settlement expansion is part of the construction of a new settlers’ compound inside the illegal settlement’. He further stated that the settlement expansion ‘came at the expense’ of land belonging to the Palestinians in Al Khader and Nahalin neighbourhoods.

The Israeli occupation authorities is planning to appropriate dozens of acres of agricultural land to build the new settlement project. This forms part of Israel’s expansion of the city of Jerusalem.

Breijah is of the view that the situation is being exploited under cover of the coronavirus pandemic.

In January Israel issued tenders for the building of 2500 new settler homes in the  occupied West Bank.

Human Rights Watch issued a report in April accusing Israel of practising apartheid and the crime of persecution in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. All Israeli settlements in the West Bank has repeatedly been described as ‘illegal’ by experts on international law.