Israel begins new settlements in West Bank after 25 years
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Israel has begun construction of the first new settlement in the occupied West Bank in 25 years, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it an "honour" to build the illegal outpost in defiance of international law.
"After decades, I have the honour to be the first prime minister to build a settlement in Judea and Samaria," Netanyahu said on Tuesday, calling the occupied West Bank by its biblical name.
"There was not, and there will never be, as good a government for the settlements as ours," the prime minister added.
Since 1992, much of the controversy surrounding Israel's settlement construction in the occupied territories has revolved around expanding existing settlements.
Before the "Oslo Accords" officially opened negotiations in 1993 - between what would become the Palestinian Authority and Israel - roughly 200,000 settlers illegally lived in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Since then, Israel has expanded the number of settlers to almost 700,000 - thereby making negotiations for a Palestinian state in the occupied territories ineffective.
