UN urges Israel to halt building of settlements immediately

UNITED NATIONS, June 25 (Arab News): The United Nations (UN) accused Israel of flagrantly violating international law by expanding settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, saying settlements are illegal and urging the country's new government to halt their enlargement immediately.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland reported on implementation of a 2016 Security Council resolution that declared settlements have "no legal validity." It demanded a halt to their expansion in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands the Palestinians want to include in a future state.

Wennesland said in a briefing to the council on Guterres' 12-page report that he was "deeply troubled" by Israel's approval of a plan to add 540 housing units to the Har Homa settlement in east Jerusalem as well as the establishment of settlement outposts. He said that is "illegal also under Israeli law."

An AFP news adds: Poland's lower house of parliament passed a law late Thursday that Israel called "immoral" as experts say it could block restitution claims, including of Jewish property lost under Nazi German occupation during World War II. The legislation could also thwart the wartime property owners and their heirs from receiving compensation if they applied more than 30 years after the end of Communism in Poland in 1989, according to experts quoted by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

"This immoral law will seriously impact relations between our countries," the Israeli embassy in Warsaw said on Twitter.

It "will in effect prevent the restitution of Jewish property or compensation requests from Holocaust survivors and their descendants as well as the Jewish community that called Poland home for centuries," it added.