US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday he was "disappointed" by an Israeli announcement that it plans to build 3,000 new housing units in settlements in the West Bank.
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Blinken said during a news conference in Buenos Aires that it was long-standing US policy that new settlements are counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has presented his first official "day after" plan for the Gaza Strip once the war ends, saying Israel will keep security control over Palestinian areas and make reconstruction dependent on demilitarization.
Video: Six facts about the Israel-Hamas war in 90 seconds / X/@idf
The plan, which brings together a range of well-established Israeli positions, underlines Netanyahu's resistance to the creation of a Palestinian state which he sees as a security threat, without explicitly ruling one out at some future stage.
It was swiftly dismissed by Palestinian officials as doomed to failure.
The document proposes Israel would maintain security control over all land west of Jordan, including the West Bank and Gaza – territories where the Palestinians hope to establish an independent state.
The plan, which Netanyahu presented to the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet Thursday, comes amid intensifying international calls to end the fighting
The United States, Israel's main ally, has said that only a two-state solution has a chance of bringing long-term peace.
In the long-term goals listed, Netanyahu rejects the "unilateral recognition" of a Palestinian state. He says a settlement with the Palestinians will only be achieved through direct negotiations between the two sides - without naming who the Palestinian party would be.
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