(MENAFN) The Palestinian Authority (PA) has warned against a newly-revived plan to build a railway network connecting illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The announcement of the settler railway is a "dangerous colonial settlement plan" that represents a "serious escalation" of the Israeli government campaign to "loot, steal and take control over" Palestinian land, said PA spokesman Youssef Mahmoud.
Mahmoud stressed that the plan is one of many attempts by Israel to impose its sovereignty and cement settler presence in occupied West Bank, making it difficult to ever realize a settlement evacuation process as part of a peace deal.
This would therefore destroy any prospect of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, added Mahmoud.
A plan to build a Bank railway system to allegedly serve all populations in the West Bank has been announced in July 2013 by Israeli authorities.
However it was subsequently slammed for being "tailored for Jewish settlers now and in the future, not the Palestinians," and will support transport links between Israel and settlements and encourage more Israelis to move into the West Bank, according to Haaretz who first broke the news of the plan.
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