Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank have resumed building work earlier today, a day after a ten-month-long moratorium on settlement construction ended. In the West Bank settlement of Oranit, bulldozers have begun preparing the grounds for more new homes. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is threatening to quit the direct peace negotiations unless the moratorium is extended. Despite Abbas’s threat, many Israeli lawmakers called for the construction of more settlements. Aryeh Eldad is a member of the Israeli Knesset.

Aryeh Eldad: “We will start building as in the past. We hope that tomorrow morning we will see more and more and more new buildings in Judea and Samaria to close the gap that was opened in the past ten months that the freeze was empowered over the settlements, and to build everything that is needed for the people who live here.”

The Israeli organization Shalom Achshav, or Peace Now, said Israel is prepared to build thousands of more homes in the occupied West Bank.

Yariv Oppenheimer, Peace Now: “According to our information there are 13,000 housing units that has an approval and can be built without a new approval of the government. But we think that in the next few weeks we will see construction of 2,500 housing units immediate. So the other 11,000, it will take some time until the settlers will take advantage of this plans and will go ahead with the construction.”