Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich confirmed today that the government will continue to build settlements and will not accept "preaching" from other countries, following the concerns raised by the United States regarding settlement construction in the occupied West Bank. Smotrich stated during a meeting of his party, "This is our land, all of it. Does anyone think that Israel will be managed as if it were another American state? I will not accept moral preaching from anyone," according to "Kan Radio."
On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government approved the construction of 4,560 new housing units in various locations in the West Bank. In response, senior Palestinian official Hussein Sheikh noted that the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited autonomy in the West Bank, did not attend an economic meeting with Israel that was scheduled for today in protest against the expansion of settlement construction. Palestinian official Waseel Abu Youssef urged the international community to move from issuing statements of condemnation to boycotting the Israeli government, and called on Arab countries to suspend normalization agreements with Israel.
