JERUSALEM (dpa-AFX) - The G7 Foreign Ministers have joined the United Nations and the European Union in condemning Israel's decision to legalize five outposts in the West Bank.
Israel Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that the Government will declare more than 1,270 hectares of land in the West Bank as 'state lands' - the largest such declaration of state land since the Oslo Accords.
The Israeli government also decided to expand existing settlements in the occupied West Bank by 5,295 new housing units and to establish three new settlements.
The Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, and the High Representative of the European Union also rejected Israel's these decisions.
'The Government of Israel's settlement program is inconsistent with international law, and counterproductive to the cause of peace,' they said in a statement.
The G7 ministers urged the Government of Israel to reverse its decision to expand settlements.
They also urged Israel to release all withheld clearance revenues in accordance with the Paris Protocols, remove or relax measures that exacerbate the economic situation in the West Bank, and to take necessary measures to ensure that correspondent banking services between Israeli and Palestinian banks remain in place with proper controls.
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