Palestinian UN observer calls for Security Council action against Israel over outposts

The Palestinian Authority’s U.N. observer denounced this week’s decision by an Israeli ministerial committee to authorized three West Bank outposts, Bruchin, Sansana, and Rechelim, as an illegal attempt by Israel to entrench “its massive network of illegal settlements.”

Riyad Mansour called on the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday “to act immediately to address these continuing illegal, grave actions by Israel.”

He said in a letter to the council that the intensified construction of Israeli settlement activities in occupied Palestinian territory “is glaring proof” of Israel’s “unlawful, expansionist aims.”

Mansour’s letter follows several condemnations from around the world of the Israeli move, including a call by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton for Israel to reverse the decision, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon branding the decision a “provocation,” and US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland rejecting the “legitimacy of continued settlement activity.”

Israel’s announcement fueled suspicions that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition would try to legalize several other hitherto unauthorized settlement sites.