Itongadol.- Housing starts in Jewish settlements in the West Bank are up by 70% this year, the anti-settlement Peace Now group said on Thursday, despite reports Israel has been quietly delaying new construction.
The figure related to the first six months of 2013 – before Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resumed in July – and was likely to deepen Palestinian concern over the pace of settlement building on land they seek for a state.
According to Peace Now, which opposes and tracks settlement activity in territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, there were 1,708 housing starts in January-June this year, compared with 995 during the same period in 2012.
It said that 61% of the construction starts were in isolated settlements outside larger settlement blocs that Israel has said it intends to keep in any future land-for-peace deal.
In May, Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered a freeze in tenders for new housing projects in West Bank settlements in an apparent attempt to help revive US-backed peace talks stalled for three years.
Peace Now said at the time that no new bids from contractors had been solicited for settlement housing since a visit in March by US President Barack Obama.
But in its new report, the group said the "tender moratorium" had little impact on construction because 86% of the building that began in the first six months of this year took place in areas where a bidding process was not required.
A key partner in Netanyahu\’s governing coalition, the far-right Habayit Hayehudi party, and members of his own right-wing Likud have publicly urged him to continue to strengthen settlements.