Jerusalem // Israel has approved hundreds of new settler homes in the occupied West Bank, in a move likely to further raise tensions following a series of Palestinian attacks.
The approval comes days after a key international report warned that Israel’s settlement expansion and confiscation of Palestinian land were eroding the possibility of a two-state peace settlement.
The report from the diplomatic Quartet – the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia – also called on Palestinians to halt attacks and incitement to violence.
Under the new approval granted by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Avigdor Lieberman, planning for 560 new Jewish homes in the large Maale Adumim settlement east of Jerusalem will be allowed to move forward.
The Maale Adumim mayor was informed of the decision on Sunday night, his office said. The settlement founded in 1975 already has a population of more than 37,000.
Mr Netanyahu also approved the planning of 240 new homes in settlement neighbourhoods of annexed east Jerusalem, as well as for 600 units for Palestinians in the city’s Beit Safafa district, media reported.
Mr Netanyahu and Mr Lieberman issued no comment on the reported approvals, which follow calls inside Israel for a harsh response to a spate of attacks on Israelis in the West Bank.
On Thursday, a 13-year-old Israeli-American girl was fatally stabbed in her home in the Kiryat Arba settlement, on the outskirts of Hebron.
Her 19-year-old Palestinian assailant was shot dead by a security guard. A young woman related to the assailant was shot dead at a Hebron checkpoint the next day by Israeli security forces who accused her of drawing a knife.
Later on Friday, an Israeli man was killed when his car was fired on by suspected Palestinian gunmen south of Hebron.
Israel the same day announced a lockdown in Hebron as it searched for the gunmen and it reduced the monthly tax payments to the Palestinian Authority as a retaliatory measure.
Israel transfers about US$127 million (Dh466m) a month in customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that pass through Israeli ports.
The measures, which also included increasing Israel’s military presence in the West Bank, were described by the army as “the most substantial” in two years.
Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, condemned the new settlement approvals as well as the lockdown on the Hebron region.
“The reason for the continuation and the diminishing and declining prospects for the two-state solution is not incitement. It is the occupation itself,” Erekat told journalists in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
“A good example, just 24 hours after the release of the Quartet report (on Friday), the governorate of Hebron with its population of around 700,000 people is under total military siege.”
Hebron has long been a flashpoint in the conflict, with hundreds of Jewish settlers living under heavy military guard in the heart of the city among some 200,000 Palestinians.
* Agence France-Presse
