Occupied West Bank: Settler siege of Palestinians marks a new low ..."“These criminal actions by the settlers, supported or acquiesced to by Israel, the Occupying Power, are making life unbearable for these Palestinian families and are clearly aimed at forcing them to leave their homes and their land,” the UN office said. “Time is running out for these three families before they are forcibly displaced”."

 

UN News

Global perspective Human stories

 

© UNICEF/Alaa Badarneh Women and children walk through Jenin in the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces have extended a closure order in Jenin camp until 20 August.

By Daniel Johnson in Geneva

13 August 2026 Peace and Security

In the occupied West Bank, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, appealed on Thursday to Israeli authorities to help Palestinian families trapped in their homes by settlers for days, amid an intensifying campaign to seize their land.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/08/1168130 

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Key points

• The West Bank has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war 
• Israeli settlements began expanding in the occupied West Bank soon after 1967
• In 2005, Israel evacuated four settlements in the northern West Bank
• The occupied territory is central to plans for a future Palestinian state, but violent settlement expansion is a growing obstacle to a negotiated two-State solution

According to reports, the United States has been involved in efforts to end the siege that began on Sunday, with the US Ambassador to Israel calling for the removal of what he called “Israeli terrorists”.

Three Palestinian families – around 15 people in total, including at least two children – have remained confined to their homes “in a state of terror” in the Ras al Ein area of Qusra village, south of Nablus, OHCHR said, alleging that the settlers had cut their power and water. 

“These criminal actions by the settlers, supported or acquiesced to by Israel, the Occupying Power, are making life unbearable for these Palestinian families and are clearly aimed at forcing them to leave their homes and their land,” the UN office said. “Time is running out for these three families before they are forcibly displaced”.

Nowhere to go 

Following the initial OHCHR statement, head of the UN office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ajith Sunghay, told UN News that the families had been subsequently moved into just one home, which remains surrounded by Israeli settlers.

“Again, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is either unable or unwilling to protect Palestinian communities, which they are expected to do so under the Geneva Convention; or worse, that the IDF is in collusion with the Israeli settlers, all aimed at displacing Palestinians and occupying their lands,” Mr. Sunghay said.

Soundcloud

He also noted that about 20 Palestinian families from Qusra had been evacuated by Israel Defense Forces soldiers “for security purposes”, before stressing the urgent need for international assistance to end the increasingly dangerous situation in the occupied territory.

He added: “We really welcome statements, we really welcome dialogue…However, this is simply not enough. I think we are past the stage of boiling point. We are seeing unprecedented level of settler violence and we call on Member States to act, use its leverage in every possible manner.”

OHCHR noted that Palestinians living in Qusra have been the target of “increasingly frequent attacks” since November 2025, when Israeli settlers established an outpost nearby.

Previous requests from the Palestinian families to the Israeli military present at the site to intervene have not helped.

“Instead, Israeli security forces seem to have blocked medics, solidarity activists and journalists from reaching the families,” OHCHR said, adding that although soldiers dismantled settlers’ tents on Wednesday, they continued to surround the Palestinians’ homes.

Escalating situation 

Mr. Sunghay noted that the dramatic events in Qusra were unfolding alongside other deeply worrying settler-driven incidents in the occupied West Bank.

This includes the IDF move to cordon off Taybeh town to people who do not live there on Tuesday, allegedly to protect them from Israeli settler attacks. 

“In such circumstances…it's the Palestinians who pay the price and face the brunt of the problems, although it’s the Israelis who are settlers who are creating violence, attacks, and issues for the Palestinians,” the OHCHR senior official insisted. 

© Adobe Stock/Voddol The security barrier erected by Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank consists of concrete slabs up to eight metres high.

In another blow to peace efforts in the occupied West Bank, Mr. Sunghay noted that Israeli settlers have moved back into Ganim, one of four Israeli settlements in the northern West Bank that were evacuated in 2005 (the others being Kadim, Sa-Nur and Homesh). “This is a trend that we have seen repeatedly that's happening in West Bank,” he said.

Latest data from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, on Thursday highlighted how Israeli settler “violence and harassment” have continued to target Palestinian communities across the West Bank. This includes those living in the South Hebron Hills and Jordan Valley. 

“In parallel, settlement expansion continued, including the establishment of several new settlement outposts,” UNRWA said.

Reality of Operation 'Iron Wall'

The agency noted that Israeli forces have extended a military closure order affecting the Tulkarm and Nur Shams camps in the northern West Bank until 30 September 2026 and Jenin camp until 20 August 2026.

The move is a renewal of earlier closure orders which have severely restricted access to the largely emptied camps, UNRWA insisted. Today, more than 34,000 Palestinian refugees remain forcibly displaced from Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Jenin camps as a result of the Israeli military’s operation “Iron Wall”, which began in January 2025.

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After visits by US ambassador Mike Huckabee to the nearby Israeli settlement of Shilo, Palestinian Americans in Turmus Ayya have witnessed a terrifying rise in attacks... Abandoned by the US: Palestinian Americans trapped in a surge of Israeli settler violence

Ashraf Rabi on the farm where he breeds Arabian horses in Turmus Ayya. He is worried that settlers attacking the village could harm his horses. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

Mon 3 Aug 2026 06.00 EDT

By Andrew Roth and Sufian Taha in Turmus Ayya, West Bank. Photography by Quique Kierszenbaum

No man’s land in Turmus Ayya lies where the US flags end and the Israeli flags begin. It is a few hundred metres of soil scorched by molotov cocktails where Israeli settlers have placed a boulder to tell the Palestinian villagers: this is our land now.

On one side of that boulder are the white-stoned mansions where the Palestinian residents of Turmus Ayya live. About 80% of them are US citizens, members of the diaspora in New York, Chicago and Paterson, New Jersey, who return for the summers and bring their children here to experience Palestinian culture and learn Arabic. Many call themselves proud American patriots and fly the stars and stripes from their balconies.

On the other side is an illegal Israeli outpost of corrugated metal trailers and shacks staffed by young men who claim all of the West Bank as Jewish land.

The outposts radiate from Shilo, a hilltop settlement across the valley that has become a destination for Americans seeking Judaism’s first religious and spiritual capital before the first temple was built. Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, has visited Shilo, which the UN says is a violation of international law, twice in the last two years.

The irony is not lost on people here that the US has backed settlers claiming the West Bank as theirs, and that US dollars – through Jewish charities and the US budget to support the Israeli military – have helped finance the Israeli land grab. Given Shilo’s close ties to the US, they muse that some of those attacking Turmus Ayya could be fellow Americans.

“Only in Palestine will you find American citizens invading American citizens for land,” said Yaser Alkam, a semi-retired family law attorney from Turmus Ayya who for 35 years lived in Anaheim, California. He is now the head of this village’s council. “There is no fight. One side attacks and the other side defends with the limited means that we have.”

The violence is relentless. At night, settlers roam the village in off-road vehicles and intimidate people with gunshots, screaming and shining flashlights through the windows....READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/03/palestinian-village-trapped-surge-settler-violence-turmus-ayya-west-bank

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Maps illustrating Israel (& Palestine)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54116567

 

Map of the Partition of Israel and Palestine 

https://worldhistorycommons.org/map-partition-israel-and-palestine

This map shows in green the areas that Israel has had under military occupation since 1967. As noted in the previous map, the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egyptian control by 1982.  https://www.palestineportal.org/learn-teach/israelpalestine-the-basics/maps/maps-1967-to-present/

 

This detailed map shows the fragmentation of the West Bank in 2002. Over a decade later, the settlement areas and their populations have greatly expanded. https://www.palestineportal.org/learn-teach/israelpalestine-the-basics/maps/maps-1967-to-present/

This map shows the planned route of the Separation Wall, also called the Separation Barrier, the Security Fence and the Apartheid Wall. Israel began building the Wall in 2002, and it is not finished https://www.palestineportal.org/learn-teach/israelpalestine-the-basics/maps/maps-1967-to-present/

The locations of checkpoints, roadblocks, agricultural gates and other obstacles have changed periodically over the years of occupation, but there continue to be hundreds of such hindrances to Palestinian’s essential freedom of movement.  https://www.palestineportal.org/learn-teach/israelpalestine-the-basics/maps/maps-1967-to-present/

Gaza is part of the territories under military occupation by Israel since the Six Day War of 1967. Although Israeli settlers and troops were withdrawn from Gaza in 2005, it is still considered occupied territory under international law because Israel still controls the lives of the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel maintains a blockade by land and sea https://www.palestineportal.org/learn-teach/israelpalestine-the-basics/maps/maps-1967-to-present/

 

This map give a detailed picture of the land around Jerusalem that Israel is annexing with the Separation Wall. The solid black line shows the portion of the Wall that has been completed and the solid red line that extends from that black line shows the route of the Wall that remains to be built. All of the light blue area is Palestinian territory trapped between the Wall to the east and the border of Israel to the west, the seam zone. All of the green area is occupied Palestinian territory beyond the Wall.

The dark blue areas are settlements, both east and west of the Wall. The orange areas are Palestinian communities, both east and west of the Wall. https://www.palestineportal.org/learn-teach/israelpalestine-the-basics/maps/maps-jerusalem/

 

How Israeli settler violence is forcing Palestinians to flee their homes – video in The Guardian

VIDEO 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2023/dec/14/how-israeli-settler-violence-is-forcing-palestinians-to-flee-their-homes-video

Masafer Yatta, the most rural and desolate area in the West Bank, is home to about 1,000 Palestinians. The community are mostly herders who raise goats and sheep, and have steadfastly refused to leave their homes despite the mounting difficulties posed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers on the one hand and radical Israeli settlers on the other.

But after weeks of intense settler violence in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October – and despite the decades-long fight to remain in their homes – these communities are now being forced off their land. Some have described it as “a new Nakba.”

The Guardian’s Bethan McKernan travelled to Masafer Yatta and heard from Palestinian families how armed settlers – some in reservist uniforms, others covering their faces – have begun breaking into their homes at night, beating up adults, destroying and stealing belongings, and terrifying children. These West Bank settlements are illegal under international law.

Click here for the latest on the Israel-Gaza war [in The Guardian]

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Israel confiscates 20 dunums of Palestinian land near Salfit ... The confiscated lands are then used to construct Jewish-only settlements on the land, while further confiscation often uses the pretext of the settlements' security.

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http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=734790

(MaanImages/file)

Published Thursday 23/10/2014

SALFIT (Ma'an) -- Israeli authorities on Thursday confiscated 20 dunums (5 acres) of Palestinian land near the Jewish settlement bloc of Ariel in the northern West Bank, on the same day that Israeli authorities halted plans to take 15 dunums (4 acres) nearby.

Israeli bulldozers began razing 20 dunums of agricultural lands in the Palestinian village of Haris near Barqan settlement on Thursday, while locals said dozens of Israelis from the nearby Jewish settlement came to help destroy the fields.

Palestinian local Muhammad Suf told Ma'an that the lands belonged to his grandfather Ali Abed Daoud Jaber Suf from Haris near the Khillet Habiba area north of Barqan settlement.

The land seizure and destruction of Palestinian agriculture comes on the same day that Palestinian officials working in coordination with the local Committee Against Israel's Separation Wall and the Settlements announced that they had succeeded in saving 15 dunums of land from confiscation just a few kilometers away, in the southwestern part of the Ariel settlement bloc.

The office of the Salfit governorate said in a statement that the land, located in Bruqin village, had been under threat since its owners were handed a 2013 evacuation order that stated the land was Israeli state property.

A lawyer representing the Committee Against Israel's Separation Wall and the Settlements, Alaa Mahajna, manged to demur the Israeli claims by proving the land was privately-owned Palestinian property that has been under constant cultivation by the owner.

As a result, Israeli authorities retracted the confiscation decision and recognized the land as private property.

Since the beginning of the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Israel has confiscated hundreds of thousands of dunums by declaring it state land.

Israeli authorities in 1968 banned Palestinians from registering their lands and subsequently took advantage of previously low rates of land registration to confiscate areas currently or previously in use by locals but not registered as such.

The confiscated lands are then used to construct Jewish-only settlements on the land, while further confiscation often uses the pretext of the settlements' security.

Hanan Ashrawi tells The Times of Israel: Jews and members of all religions would have the right to apply for Palestinian citizenship. But “Palestine” could not accept “ex-territorial Jewish enclaves” where residents maintained their Israeli citizenship status

Times of Israel

Palestinians: Yes to Jews, no to settlers in our state

Netanyahu raised issue of settlers remaining in a future Palestine during recent talks with John Kerry, Palestinian official says

The Palestinian refusal to accept Israeli settlers in their future state does not stem from anti-Jewish sentiment, Palestinian officials said on Monday. Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, told The Times of Israel that Jews and members of all religions would have the right to apply for Palestinian citizenship. But “Palestine” could not accept “ex-territorial Jewish enclaves” where residents maintained their Israeli citizenship status, she said. 

 

 "....In an interview with official PA daily Al-Ayyam Monday, Erekat said the Palestinian position has nothing to do with singling out Jews.

“If Netanyahu argues that these positions are against Jews, we say to him that two Jews were elected in 2009 as members of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council: Ilan Halevi and Uri Davis,” Erekat said. “Our position is against settlements, considering them illegal and contrary to all international laws.”

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, said that a clear distinction must be made between settlers and Jewish individuals who choose to live in a Palestinian state.

“Any person, be he Jewish, Christian or Buddhist, will have the right to apply for Palestinian citizenship,” Ashrawi told The Times of Israel. “Our basic law prohibits discrimination based on race or ethnicity.”

She added, however, that Palestinians would not accept “ex-territorial Jewish enclaves,” where residents will maintain their Israeli citizenship status. Abbas, she said, had no problem with Jews within the Palestinian state, including in the international security force deployed in the Jordan Valley.

Read more: Palestinians: Yes to Jews, no to settlers in our state | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-yes-to-jews-no-to-settlers-in-our-state/#ixzz2rhNxQQRG

 

found via ATFP front page

 Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO Executive Committee

Israel To Build 3000 New Settlement Units

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http://www.imemc.org/article/66496?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[Tuesday December 3, 2013] Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Yaalon, has decided to approve 3000 new units in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and in occupied East Jerusalem. New illegal settlement also to be built in the Negev.

File - Maan Images

The decision came despite a statement made by Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who alleged that Tel Aviv “will not rush new plans” and “will not issue new bids at the current stage.”

Israeli sources said that Yaalon issued several similar decisions, and that most of these decisions were made in July this year, especially when he approved the construction of 2487 units in several settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli Peace Now Movement said that Yaalon is waging an extensive campaign to expand various illegal settlements such as Alia Zahav, Shilo, Kedumim, Givat Zeev, and Talmon.

In related news, the Israeli Regional Construction and Planning Committee, has decided to build a new settlement of 250 units for young Israeli couples in the Negev, as part of the Ramat Negev Regional Council of Settlements.

The decision came amidst massive protests against the Prawer-Begin displacement plan in the Negev.

Israel claims the decision is based on a former recommendation made by Israel’s Interior Minister.

Shmolik Rifman, head of the Ramat Negev Council, “welcomed” the decision, and asserted that the settlement would include secular and religious young Jewish couples, and that he hopes construction will begin within two years.

----

The Prawer-Begin Plan aims at illegally confiscating nearly a million Dunams of Arab – Bedouin land in the Negev, and the total destruction and removal of nearly 36 “unrecognized villages”, an issue that would lead to the displacement of about 100,000 persons.

By forcing out the Arabs from the Negev, and the construction of malls and “Jewish-only” areas, Israel will be blocking any geographical contiguity between the Negev, Gaza and Sinai.

The plan, which passed following the first reading, would also lead to the illegal annexation of more than 800,000 Dunams of Arab lands in the Negev.

west bank | israeli settlement | news report

NGO: Israel okays 829 new settler homes in West Bank

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A view shows the West Bank Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim near
Jerusalem in this picture taken Dec. 4, 2012. (Reuters/Ammar Awad)

 http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=650730

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Israeli authorities have given the go-ahead for the construction of 829 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank, settlement watchdog Peace Now said on Monday.

"The construction of 829 homes has been approved by a committee of the Israeli military in charge of the West Bank," said Lior Amihai, a Peace Now official.

"This is yet another move that threatens to derail the peace process," Amihai told AFP.

President Mahmoud Abbas has warned that ongoing settlement building by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories threatens the future of the Middle East peace process.

The new homes would be built north of Jerusalem in the settlements of Givat Zeev, Nofei Prat, Shilo, Givat Salit and Nokdim, Amihai said.

The latest move comes two weeks after Israel announced its largest plan for settler homes ever, saying some 20,000 would be built in the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled the order after pressure from the United States, which brought the two sides to the table in July and as the Israeli premier sought to dissuade Washington from striking a nuclear deal with Iran.

That announcement had prompted the entire Palestinian negotiating team to resign in protest -- resignations which Abbas has yet to accept.

Abbas told AFP last week his side is committed to the full period of talks agreed with Washington that will end in around April.

But if the talks end with no deal, the Palestinians have said they will pursue legal action against Israel's illegal building through international courts.

Commentators say the Palestinians will not back out of talks before their end date, as this would signal implicit responsibility for their failure.

Hollande: France urges 'full and complete halt to settlement'

French President Francois Hollande shakes hands with President
Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting in the West Bank city of
Ramallah, on November 18, 2013 (AFP/Majdi Mohammed)

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http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=648546

18/11/2013
RAMALLAH (AFP) -- French President Francois Hollande on Monday called for a complete halt to Israel's settlement activities on occupied Palestinian territory.

"France demands a full and complete halt to settlement activity," he said at a joint news conference in Ramallah with his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas.

Speaking on his first official visit to the Palestinian territories, the French leader warned that settlement construction was problematic for the peace talks which have been limping along for more than three months with little sign of progress.

"Settlement activity complicates the negotiations and makes it difficult to achieve a two-state solution," Hollande said.

Since Israeli and Palestinian negotiators returned to the table at the end of July, Israel has announced thousands of new settler homes in a move which has angered Ramallah.

But Abbas on Sunday told AFP that peace talks with Israel would continue for the full nine months agreed with Washington "regardless of what happens on the ground".

In talks with the Israeli leadership on Sunday, Hollande said France expected the government to make "gestures" with respect to settlement construction, although he did not indicate exactly what that might involve.

"If you want peace, you need to have gestures towards peace," he said.

Israel's policy of erasure : A path to peace between Israelis and Palestinians requires not simply dealing with settlements but with the whole complex of displacement, suffocation and erasure.

A Palestinian man sits by the remains of his house destroyed last month in Aqraba village near the West Bank city of Nablus. The Israeli military said it demolished four structures that had been built illegally in the village. (Nasser Ishtayeh / Associated Press)

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http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-makdisi-settlements-israel-palestinians-kerr-20131118,0,1866660.story#axzz2kzSHgw6U

By Saree Makdisi

November 18, 2013

.... Settlement expansion, we are constantly told, is the stumbling block to the fragile negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. The settlements are eating up the territory that is supposed to provide the basis for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. If only there were a settlement freeze, some say, one last chance for peace might be salvaged.

All of that may be true enough as far as it goes. But in fact, Israeli settlement expansion is meaningless when it's considered in isolation. And that is how it is usually considered, given how much media attention the word "settlement" garners every time it comes up.

There are, however, other, individually quieter, smaller, less visible — but collectively far more significant — events taking place on a daily basis.

Indeed, the settlement program is only one component of a broad complex of Israeli policies that has come to define the rhythm and tempo of life for Palestinians, not only in the occupied territories but inside Israel itself. These policies express Israel's longstanding wish to erase the Palestinian presence on land it considers its own.

Consider, for example, this stunning statistic from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA: On average, every week so far this year, Israel has demolished about 13 Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied territories (up from a weekly average of about 12 last year). The structures include water cisterns, barns and family homes that Israel claims violate the draconian rules it imposes on Palestinian life.

Sometimes these demolitions effectively obliterate entire communities at once.

On Aug. 19, according to OCHA, Israel destroyed all the structures in the East Jerusalem Palestinian community of Tel al-Adassa. The same week, Israel re-demolished the Palestinian village of Araqib, in southern Israel, as it has done more than 50 times since 2010. On Sept. 11, Israel bulldozed almost all the structures in the West Bank herding community of Az Zayyim, rendering dozens of people homeless. Days later, Israel demolished all the homes of the village of Mak-hul in the Jordan Valley, and declared its ruins a closed military area, preventing the villagers' return.

And so it goes — a litany of catastrophes occurring on a small scale, in communities you have never heard of, all the year round....READ MORE

Israel 'plans 20,000 new settler homes in West Bank'

A view shows the West Bank Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim near
Jerusalem in this picture taken Dec. 4, 2012. (Reuters/Ammar Awad)

November 12, 2013

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Israel plans to build 20,000 new settler homes in the West Bank, settlement watchdog Peace Now said on Tuesday, the biggest batch of tenders since peace talks restarted.

"The housing ministry announced tenders for the planning of 20,000 settler homes," Peace Now director Yariv Oppenheimer told Israeli public radio.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office stressed he had opposed some 1,200 of the homes slated for construction in the highly contentious area of the West Bank known as E1.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=646742

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NYTimes News October 30, 2013: 1,500 Units to Be Added in Settlement, Israel Says

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said that with the new moves toward construction, “Israel is willfully and flagrantly violating international law and the requirements of peace.” She called the announcements “an affront” to Mr. Kerry’s efforts and warned that they could “provoke parallel violence and extremism throughout the region.” 

“The Israeli occupation is exposing its true intentions of creating ‘greater Israel’ rather than a two-state solution,” Ms. Ashrawi said in a statement. “The Israeli government has proven once again that it is not a partner for peace nor a member of the international community that respects the global rule of law.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/world/middleeast/israel-approves-1500-new-apartments-in-east-jerusalem.html?ref=middleeast

Abir Sultan/European Pressphoto Agency

A Palestinian construction worker at a building site on Wednesday in the Ramat Shlomo settlement in East Jerusalem.

 JERUSALEM — The Israeli government announced Wednesday that it had given final approval for 1,500 new apartments in a particularly contentious Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem and moved forward on plans for a controversial park and tourism center here, prompting Palestinian accusations that it is not taking the Washington-brokered peace talks seriously....READ MORE

A new report says Israeli settlement construction on the Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank has increased by about 70 percent.

Israeli Settlements in West Bank Up 70%

Published on Thursday, 17 October 2013 12:11

A new report says Israeli settlement construction on the Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank has increased by about 70 percent.

 

Israeli organization Peace Now* said on Thursday that the Tel Aviv regime began the construction of 1,708 new settler units in the West Bank between January and June of 2013, compared with 995 units during the same period in 2012.

The organization also stated that the new illegal settlement activities were “drastic,” and that some 50 percent of the new construction projects were started in “isolated settlements.”

Most of the settlement projects were carried out within the 1967 borders, the organization added.

“Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, the Israeli population in Judea and Samaria has tripled, with a majority of settlers residing in the so-called settlement blocs,” Peace Now also said.

The Israeli regime has been under fire from the international community, including its own allies, over its expansionist policies.

However, the Tel Aviv regime defies calls to abandon its illegal settlement activities.

Over half a million Israelis live in more than 120 settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.

This article was originally posted on PressTV.*

*Peace Now
*Press TV 
*Palestine

Diplomats urge EU to block Jerusalem settlements

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http://news.yahoo.com/diplomats-urge-eu-block-jerusalem-settlements-142035564.html

By KARIN LAUB | Associated Press

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Nearly two dozen European diplomats have urged the EU to intensify efforts to block Israeli settlement in and near Jerusalem, saying such construction on occupied lands is the "single biggest threat" to a Mideast peace deal, according to an internal report Wednesday.

The diplomats also said the EU must ensure that aid to Israel and preferential trade agreements don't inadvertently benefit settlements, according to the report obtained by The Associated Press.

They recommended that the EU "prevent, discourage and raise awareness" of direct investments by European companies in [Israeli] settlements ...READ MORE