Israeli parliament has postponed a vote that would allow it to appropriate hundreds of hectares of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, the parliament’s website said Tuesday.
The Knesset, or parliament, on Monday began to consider the bill ahead of second and third parliamentary readings due to take place this week.
Voting will now take place next week, the Knesset website said, with February 6 the earliest the bill can be passed.
Presented by the pro-settlement lobby, the bill would retroactively legalize nearly 4,000 Israeli settlement unites in the occupied West Bank built in contravention of Israeli law, according to the anti-settlement organization Peace Now.
More than 800 hectares of Palestinian land would be expropriated, the organization said.
Under the law, the Palestinian owners of the land would be compensated financially or with land elsewhere.
Source: AFP
