PALESTINIAN leaders condemned an Israeli law passed on Monday night legalising Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank as a “land-grab” and “annexation” yesterday.

The Knesset voted 60-52 in favour of the Regularisation Bill, which grants official recognition to 16 illegal settlement outposts, with the possibility of adding more later.

It says colonies built in “good faith” — where the settlers claim they did not know the land was stolen from its rightful Palestinian owners — would be recognised.

Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) secretary-general Saeb Erekat said the Bill “legalised theft of Palestinian land.

“All Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine are illegal and a war crime regardless of any law passed by the Israeli parliament or any decision taken by any Israeli judge,” he said in a written statement.

“It is overdue time to stop treating Israel as a state above the law.”

PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi said the legislation gave “clear licence to the settlers to embark on a land-grab in the occupied West Bank with impunity.”

“Such a law signals the final annexation of the West Bank,” she said.

“This also proves beyond doubt that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist, racist coalition government are deliberately breaking the law and destroying the very foundations of the two-state solution and the chances for peace and stability.”

The Arab Joint List in the Knesset condemned the vote as the “assassination of the peaceful solution.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said: “What we want is peace ... but what Israel does is to work toward one state based on apartheid.

“That Bill is contrary to international law,” he said after a meeting with French President Francois Hollande in Paris. “This is an aggression against our people that we will be opposing in international organisations.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had tried to wash his hands of the Bill at the weekend. But as he flew back from meeting British Prime Minister Theresa May in London on Monday night he said he was ready to implement it.

Ministers in Mr Netanyahu’s government and MPs from his Likud Party celebrated after the vote.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the extremist pro-settler Jewish Home party, tweeted: “Revolution.”

The US government repeated its limited criticism last week that new settlement building “may not be helpful” to the peace process, adding that it would reserve comment “until the relevant court ruling.”

Israeli groups said they would appeal against the law in the Supreme Court. Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has repeatedly asserted the Bill would violate Israeli and international law.

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