The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that Israel’s appropriation of hundreds of acres of land in the Bethlehem area for the illegal Nahal Heletz settlement “comes in light of the international failure to implement the relevant UN resolutions”, Al Jazeera reports.

In a statement carried by the official Wafa news agency, the ministry stressed that the international community’s failure “encourages Israel to continue West Bank land confiscation and the deepening of its colonial project”.

The ministry also said that the increased demolitions that have accompanied the acts of land appropriation “constitute a blatant disregard of international resolutions, international law and the advisory opinion issued by the ICJ”.