Hoo-Wee

The American non-governmental organization, USAID, is involved in an illegal building project on the site of the Shdema refugee camp, near Beit Sahur, members of a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee subcommittee discovered on a tour of the eastern Gush Etzion area.

National Union MK Arye Eldad protested the illegal building in a letter to the US embassy in Tel Aviv. Eldad, who is a doctor, said that there had been plans in the Civil Administration to build a hospital on the site but no permission had been given for USAID to build there.

"We cannot accept the fact that at the same time that the United States demands that Israel stop 'all illegal building projects' in Judea and Samaria, an American organization that enjoys tax exemption in the US is involved in illegal building activity in Judea and Samaria," Eldad wrote.