Speaking to Al Quds news portal, Khalil Al-Tafakji, a settlement and land specialist, detailed that the Israeli authorities completed the expansion of Route 60, which connects the city to the colonies located in the southern West Bank.

He pointed out that Route 60 extends from the Israeli city of Nazareth, in the north, to Beersheba, in the south, but clarified that its route crosses the occupied West Bank to connect the settlements there.

The work is part of Israel’s strategic plan to establish Greater Jerusalem by building a network of tunnels, roads and infrastructure that will occupy more Palestinian land, he stressed.

To this end, he added, the Gush Etzion bloc, which groups together numerous Jewish settlements in the south of the so-called Holy City, will be expanded.

The idea, he explained, is to add another 100,000 settlers in the next four years in these localities, which the international community considers illegitimate as they are built on Palestinian land.

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