Jewish settlers 'to increase by 10,000 within year'

[Scurrilous]

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"An Israeli minister has predicted there will be 10,000 new settlers in the occupied West Bank over the next 10 months and insisted that a moratorium did not freeze but only limited construction.

"Over the next 10 months the population of 300,000 will grow by at least 10,000 residents," said Benny Begin, a minister without portfolio from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, in comments broadcast on public radio on Friday.

"Properly speaking, this is not a freeze. We are not planning to freeze life but only to impose certain limits on construction" in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Begin said on Thursday night in Tel Aviv.

Begin is a member of the ministerial commission responsible for the implementation of the 10-month moratorium on new building permits for settler homes announced two weeks ago amid US-led pressure to freeze settlement construction.

The moratorium excludes settlements in annexed Arab east Jerusalem and several thousand homes where construction has already started."

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