BICOM

An Israeli plan to double the area and population of the West Bank city Qalqilya has been criticised by settler communities.

The plan, reported by Channel Two news on Wednesday, involves the construction of more than 14,000 new housing units on over 2,500 acres, which will be added to the city from Israeli controlled Area C.

Israeli officials have stated it is not a new plan; it comes as part of the framework of the carrot and stick policy championed by Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman aimed at easing the lives of Palestinians, and forms a specific response to the distress in Qalqilya. Officials from the Prime Minister’‎s Bureau have said that the plan was raised by the Defence Minister last year and had subsequently been approved by the security cabinet.

Samaria Regional Council Chairman Yossi Dagan has said: “They’re taking Qalqilya, where so many terror attacks originated, and giving it more than seven times what the 24 Jewish local authorities in Judea and Samaria received.”

Hebron Hills Regional Council Chairman Yohai Damri said the plan was “a slap in the face” to the Zionist enterprise.

The plan was also criticised by Jewish Home Ministers Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked. In a joint statement they said they “opposed the plan named ‘carrot and stick’ ‎which was and remains a plan to reward terrorism and promote the Palestinian takeover of Area C”.  They criticised the plan in light of the “restricted extent” of construction for Israeli communities, and demanded that the plan be frozen until it was debated by the security cabinet again or 14,000 houses were sold to Israelis living in Area C.

The Prime Minister’s Office rejected this criticism, pointing out that “over 10,000 homes have been approved for planning and construction in the Jewish communities”, whilst Lieberman responded that settlement building numbers for the first half of 2017 were the highest they had been since 1992.