The Israeli occupation government has announced new plans to press ahead with the expansion of three Israeli settlements in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing published, on Monday evening, notices inviting bids from contractors to build more than one thousand and two hundred new housing units on plots in settlements of "Ramot" and "Pisgat Ze'ev", which are established on Palestinian villages' territories, north of Jerusalem.
The Israeli NGO Peace Now said on Tuesday that an additional tender for the construction of 72 new units in the West Bank settlement of Ariel, established on lands belonging to the city of Nablus, was reissued on Monday after a previous notice failed to attract winning bidders.
The group condemned the new settlement expansion project and said in a statement: "This is the true answer of Netanyahu to Abbas. Chairman Abbas declared again his strong commitment to the two-state solution, and Netanyahu replied with thousands of new units in settlements".
Around 500,000 settlers live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
