'Progress towards peace requires a freeze of Israel’s settlement enterprise,” Ban said in an address to the UN Security Council's periodic Middle East debate at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday.
Ban also described the Tel Aviv regime’s continued settlement activities 'an affront to the Palestinian people and to the international community,” Press TV reported.
The UN chief also expressed concern over plans by the Israeli regime to build over 150 new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and to confiscate 380 acres (154 hectares) of agricultural land in the Jordan Valley near the West Bank city of Jericho.
