RAMALLAH, Palestine

The Israeli army expropriated more Palestinian lands in western Ramallah, in the central occupied West Bank, near existing illegal settlements, a Palestinian group said on Tuesday.

The Israeli army seized 441 dunums (441,000 square meters) of lands from Palestinian citizens in the villages of Shabtin, Deir Ammar and Deir Qaddis in western Ramallah, the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission said in a statement.

It added that the Israeli army aims to seize all lands surrounding the Israeli settlements of Nili and Naale which are built on Palestinian land.

In June, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke, in a leaked audio, about preventing the occupied West Bank from becoming a part of an independent Palestinian state and to strengthen Israeli control over it.

Despite continued international criticism of the illegal Israeli settlement construction on the Palestinian lands, the Israeli government took several steps in recent months to accelerate the settlement activity across the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Under international law, all Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are considered illegal.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara