Rights group Yesh Din demands freeze on West Bank quarries

Israel is violating international law by exploiting the West Bank's mineral resources for its own benefit, an Israeli human rights group charged in a court petition Monday. In the petition filed to Israel's Supreme Court, the Yesh Din group charges that 75 percent of the rock and gravel removed from 11 West Bank rock quarries is transferred to Israel. The group is demanding a halt to all Israeli mining activity in the West Bank. The mining activities are "illegal and executed though brutal economic exploitation of occupied territory for the economic needs of the State of Israel, the occupying power," reads the petition.