The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) ministry of foreign affairs said that the new Israeli decision to expand settlements "is a new challenge to the international peace determination and a clear rejection to the international resolutions."
The PNA foreign ministry called on the secretary-general of the United Nations and the state members of the human rights council to implement the council's decision to send an inquiry committee to investigate settlement in the Palestinian territories, adding " condemnation can never be enough."
In response to the decision of expanding settlements, the PNA called on the world's states and countries to recognize an independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in June 1967 with east Jerusalem as its capital "as a guarantee to the principle of the two-state solution."
The Israeli ministry of housing had announced on Wednesday evening that it intends to build 551 new housing units in the settlements of the West Bank, according to Israel Radio, which reported that the 551 units will be built in five major settlements in the West Bank.
The ministry accused the Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that it behaves in a way to undermine all the efforts to save the stalled peace process. It called on the Security Council to hold an emergency session "to oblige Israel to stop its terrorism."
"The U.S. condemnation of the Israeli decision is not enough and this needs practical steps on the ground to halt the Israeli mentality of expansion and confiscation of lands," said the statement, where the Palestinian Presidency had also condemned the Israeli decision.
Nabil Abu Rdeineh, a spokesman to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement published by the state-run Wafa news agency that the Palestinian leadership is strongly condemning the Israeli decision "which obstructs the efforts to revive the peace process that Israel refuses it."
He accused Israel that it refuses to be committed to the demands and requirements of peace mainly the Roadmap plan and the cessation of settlement activities, where he also warned that the on-going Israeli policy, which challenges the Arabs' will, "would keep the region in a status of instability."
Meanwhile, spokesman of Abbas' Fatah Party in the West Bank Osama al-Qawasmi said that the Palestinians would never accept the policy "that the raciest government of Netanyahu is trying to dictate on the Palestinians by force through-out settlement expansions and confiscation of lands."
"The political platform of Netanyahu's government focuses on the principle of uprooting the Palestinian people from their lands, destroy their homes and build settlement on the ruins of the Palestinian people and their properties," said al-Qawasmi.
Darul Ihsan Media Desk