Tag Archives: Jerusalem

Israeli soldier killed in Palestinian car ramming in West Bank: army

Israeli forces inspect the scene of a Palestinian car ramming attack near the Jewish settlement of Ofra near the West Bank city of Ramallah April 6, 2017. REUTERS/ Ammar Awad

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli military said a car driven by a Palestinian deliberately rammed two Israeli soldiers, killing one and injuring the other, in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

The death brings to 39 the number of Israelis killed in a wave of Palestinian street attacks that began in October 2015, while at least 242 Palestinians have been killed in Israel and the Palestinian Territories over the past 18 months.

The driver was detained after the incident near the Jewish settlement of Ofra, the army said in a statement. Witnesses told Israeli media that as he approached a bus stop, he accelerated and directed the vehicle at two soldiers waiting there.

Israeli government development of settlements in the West Bank has been a focus of friction with Palestinians and contributed to the breakdown of peace talks. Israel disputes the view that the settlements are illegal, and argues it has biblical and historical ties to the land.

Israel says at least 162 of the Palestinians killed had launched stabbing, shooting or ramming attacks. Others died during clashes and protests.

Israel has accused the Palestinian leadership of inciting the violence. The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank, denies incitement and charges that in many cases, Israel has used excessive force in thwarting attackers armed with rudimentary weapons.

Photos from the scene of Thursday’s incident showed the driver, bound, blindfolded and guarded by a soldier, seated next to his damaged car, in the undergrowth behind the bus stop. The vehicle had Palestinian license plates.

Five days ago, Israeli paramilitary police officers shot dead a Palestinian after he stabbed three Israelis in Jerusalem’s Old City.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Ralph Boulton; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

As Israeli settlement growth slows, some drift away

The West Bank Jewish settlement of Ofra is photographed as seen from the Jewish settler outpost of Amona in the occupied West Bank, October 20, 2016. The Palestinian village of Silwad is seen in the background.

By Maayan Lubell

BEITAR ILLIT, West Bank (Reuters) – After five years, Batsheva Reback couldn’t take living in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank any longer.

Despite renting a house with a garden for far less than it would cost in Israel itself, it didn’t make sense. Her new apartment in Israel may be small, but unlike where she used to live it has a supermarket and a clinic nearby, it’s a quicker commute to work and she feels her children are safer.

“It’s easier to get things done,” said the 26-year-old kindergarten assistant, adding that the decision was not based on expedience alone. “I started feeling uncomfortable living in a settlement. Personally, I don’t think building more and more settlements is going to help bring peace.”

To the world, the narrative on settlements often reads one way: more of them being built, with more settlers moving in. But there are cracks in the picture, and signs Reback’s perspective is not uncommon – settlers are getting fed up.

Statistics show the population continues to rise, having now reached around 400,000 in the West Bank and 200,000 in East Jerusalem.

But behind the figures lies a different story. Although the population may have risen by nearly two-thirds in the past decade, the rate of increase has slowed sharply, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics.

A decade ago, for every 1,000 settlers already living in occupied territory, 20 more arrived each year. Now the expansion rate is just six per 1,000.

“The settlement enterprise is waning and what is left is being artificially kept alive by the government pouring money in,” said Shaul Arieli, an analyst at the Economic Cooperation Foundation, a think-tank that advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Since capturing the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, successive Israeli governments have helped establish more than 120 settlements, spending billions of dollars to build tens of thousand of homes and the infrastructure to support them: roads, electricity, gas, water and communications.

There are scores more informal settler outposts, some of which have also received government funding.

While Israel’s right-wing government is in talks with the Trump administration about limiting expansion, it has also promised to build thousands more units this year to accommodate what it calls “natural growth” – families having more children.

Yet while population growth in the settlements is higher than the national average, its rate is also falling: In 1995, it stood at 10 percent. By 2015, it had dropped to 4 percent.

Leaders of the settler movement acknowledge the decline but say it does not reflect falling popularity. While the downturn is a concern, they say it stems from government curbs on construction: people aren’t moving to the settlements because there aren’t enough homes to house them.

“The pioneering settlement spirit, the desire to return to those places where the people of Israel have always been, is just getting stronger,” said Yigal Dilmoni, deputy head of the Yesha Council, the settlers’ main representative body.

That is what concerns the international community, which views settlements on occupied land as a breach of international law and an obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, who seek a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Israel disputes the view that the settlements are illegal, and argues that it has biblical and historical ties to the land. Some right-wing members of the Israeli government want to annex up to 60 percent of the West Bank and massively ramp up the settlement enterprise.

AFFORDABILITY

Palestinians see any expansion of settlements as part of an Israeli project to deny them a state.

“They are building settlements at a rate of construction that is politically motivated,” Xavier Abu Eid, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s Negotiations Affairs Department. “Settlements and the incentives given to settlers are part of the Israeli government’s agenda. The two-state solution is clearly not.”

Settlement population growth is now largely driven by a handful of settlements built for the ultra-Orthodox community, whose families on average have six children.

Over the past two decades, the two main ultra-orthodox settlements, Beitar Illit and Modiin Illit, have grown from comprising about 10 percent of the West Bank settler population to making up nearly a third of it.

Unlike many of the hardline, ideological settlements deep in the West Bank, Beitar Illit and Modiin Illit are adjacent to Israel and would probably be incorporated in any peace deal with the Palestinians. Their cramped apartment blocs stand in stark contrast to the red-roofed, spacious houses with gardens that identify most settlements built on West Bank hilltops.

Ultra-Orthodox residents say they moved here because it’s cheap. The conflict with the Palestinians and settling the land are not on their minds. Any place that enables their often poor and close-knit community to live together is fine.

“Politically I’m not bothered. All those global considerations are not something the average ultra-Orthodox family can afford,” said 37-year-old Motti Hizkiyahu, standing outside a discount store in Modiin Illit.

GETTING OUT

While the rate of people moving to settlements and the growth within them has tapered, there are also signs of a generational shift in some of the most established, ideological settlements that spearheaded the movement in the 1970s.

Itzik Fleger, a real-estate agent in Beit-El settlement, said the founding generation is beginning to get older, their children have grown up and some have moved away.

It took Ruchi Avital two years of deliberations until she left the settlement of Ofra, her home of 30 years, to be closer to her children, all of whom moved out of the West Bank. She is a still an ardent supporter of the settlement enterprise, but a desire to be closer to her children overrode ideology.

Pictures of her former two-storey house and garden are affixed to her refrigerator in her new Jerusalem apartment, which she said is double the price and half the size.

While Ofra has seen more people leave than arrive in recent years, Avital, 64, believes it still has a future.

“It’s reached a critical mass, it’s mature enough now that it can handle people coming and leaving,” she said, adding that a family with children had moved into her old home.

Arieli, of the Economic Cooperation Foundation, says the reality is different. While the settlements are numerous, with vast state infrastructure to support them, the enterprise is not big enough to sustain itself, he argues.

“The settlement movement has failed in creating the physical conditions for annexation,” he said, referring to the push to annex the area where nearly all settlements are located. “The two-state solution is still strong and viable.”

(Additional reporting by Lee Marzel and Luke Baker; editing by Luke Baker and Peter Graff)

Israeli ban targeting boycott supporters raises alarm abroad

FILE PHOTO: Anti-Israel demonstrators led by the protest group Code Pink wear masks of Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu as they sit at the entrance to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, March 1, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Miriam Berger

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A law barring foreigners from entering Israel if they back boycotts against the country is causing alarm among liberal American Jews and others who perceive an attempt to suppress critical political opinion.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government has long campaigned against the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, describing it as anti-Semitic and an attempt to erase Israel’s legitimacy.

The movement, launched in 2005 as a non-violent campaign to press Israel to heed international law and end its occupation of territory Palestinians seek for a state, has gathered momentum in recent years even if its economic impact remains negligible.

On March 6, Israel’s parliament passed legislation saying any individuals or representatives of groups supporting BDS-type boycotts – excluding Israeli citizens and permanent residents – would be barred from the country.

Before the law was published and took effect on March 14, some foreigners were denied entry, including a British activist from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

This week, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan went further, calling for a database of any Israelis involved with BDS, including tracking their activity on social media.

In a further sign of a crackdown, one of the founders of the BDS movement, Qatari-born Palestinian Omar Barghouti, who cannot be banned under the law because he’s married to an Israeli-Arab and is a permanent resident of Israel, was arrested this week on suspicion of tax evasion, local media reported.

American Jews who frequently visit Israel say they are alarmed by the law. While they may not support BDS, they oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem – which most of the world regards as illegal under international law – and support pressure on the government to end it.

“I was horrified by the ban because it seemed to announce that people would be excluded from Israel because of political views,” said Rabbi Arthur Green, a well-known scholar of Jewish mysticism at Hebrew College in Boston, who visits Israel regularly. “I feel it emboldens extremists on both sides.”

Green and other prominent Jews abroad published an open letter in the Israeli press last week denouncing the ban and challenging the government to arrest them when they arrive.

WHERE IS ISRAEL GOING?

Others see the legislation as an attack on free speech and question what it says about the right-wing government’s openness to criticism. Internally, Israel tolerates a large diversity of opinion, but commentators say it appears not to accept it so readily from the outside.

This can put the nation in conflict with Jewish communities abroad that might normally be natural defenders of Israel.

“I would map it within deep divisions among Jewish and Israeli communities about where Israel should be and is going,” said Moshe Halbertal, a professor of philosophy at Hebrew University and a leading authority on ethics.

“It really harms the case of Israel in a serious way, and the idea that it’s a country that invites open debate and discussion.”

One of the chief concerns about the law is that it does not distinguish between general boycotts of Israel and boycotts targeting Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want for their own state.

Several European Union countries, for example, label products made in Israeli settlements. Israel calls this a boycott of settlement goods. The countries involved say it is about identifying where the goods come from and clearly separating between Israel and the land it occupies.

Jennifer Gorovitz, vice president of the left-leaning New Israel Fund, a U.S. non-profit group, said the new law seemed to erase the line between Israel and the Palestinian territories, making all criticism, including of settlements, unacceptable.

(Editing by Luke Baker and Mark Heinrich)

Russia must limit Iranian power in Syria: Israeli intelligence director

FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow, Russia, March 9, 2017. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS/File Photo

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Russia and other world powers must move to limit Iran’s growing military strength in Syria because it poses a regional threat, the director-general of Israel’s Intelligence Ministry told Reuters in an interview.

Israeli officials estimate Iran commands at least 25,000 fighters in Syria, including members of its own Revolutionary Guard, Shi’ite militants from Iraq and recruits from Afghanistan and Pakistan. It also coordinates the activities of the powerful Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

“As we speak, relations between Iran and Syria are getting tighter,” said Chagai Tzuriel, the top civil servant in Israel’s Intelligence Ministry, who spent 27 years in Mossad, including as station chief in Washington.

“Iran is in the process of putting together agreements, including economic agreements, with Syria to strengthen its hold, its ports and naval bases there,” he said in a rare interview. “There is a need for Russia and other powers to work to avoid the threat that Iran ends up with military, air and naval bases in Syria.”

Israel has long warned about the threat from Iran, especially its perceived desire to acquire nuclear weapons, but now sees a rising territorial squeeze, with Tehran’s influence reaching in an arc from Lebanon in the north to Gaza in the south, where it has links to Islamist groups.

Iran maintains it wants a nuclear capability only for domestic energy and scientific research purposes, and has so far largely stuck to the terms of the nuclear deal agreed with the United States and other world powers in 2015.

Tzuriel said the conflict in Syria, now in its seventh year, had created a number of imbalances in the region – whether between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, Iran and Turkey, Kurds and Arabs, Turkey and Syria, Russia and the United States – that needed to be kept contained and shifted back into equilibrium.

A lot of the responsibility for that rests with Russia, which has become the biggest player in the region and is capable of exerting the most influence, he said.

“When it comes to Iran, the United States, Russia and other powers need to understand that (growing Iranian influence in Syria) is going to be a constant source of friction,” said Tzuriel, adding that it could reduce Moscow’s own influence in the region and set back the gains it has made in Syria.

“Russia has a vested interest in keeping that threat contained.”

‘WHAT DO WE WANT?’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met President Vladimir Putin five times since Sept. 2015, largely in an effort to ensure communications are open and there are no misunderstandings over Syria, where Israeli fighter planes have occasionally bombed targets, including last week. Syria fired a missile in response and Moscow called in Israel’s ambassador to discuss the Israeli raid.

“We don’t view Russia as the enemy and I don’t think they view us as the enemy either,” said Tzuriel, but he suggested Russia would need to work with others, including the United States, to keep a lid on the forces at play in Syria.

“We have to assume that the Russians want stability, they want a Pax Russiana in the region,” he said.

“If they want a stabilization, they can’t do it alone. They need the United States, they need regional powers, they need opposition parties and militias, even those that are not exactly Russia’s cup of tea.”

After a career in intelligence gathering, Tzuriel drew a distinction between intelligence and strategy. After years of conflict and more than 500,000 dead, it was still incumbent on the parties tied to Syria to fix a strategic outcome.

“We have to decide what we want (in Syria) or what we don’t want,” he said. “The main strategic threat right now is what happens in Syria, it is the key arena. There’s no place in the world that has so many elements wrapped up in it.”

(Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Pravin Char)

Israel intercepts missile fired at its air force in Syria

By Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli military said it shot down one of numerous anti-aircraft missiles launched on Friday at its air force which was operating in Syria, in a rare such incident that spilled over into neighboring countries.

The Syrian army said it had shot down an Israeli jet during the operation. Israel denied this, saying that all its aircraft had returned unscathed.

“At no point was the safety of Israeli civilians or the IAF (Israeli Air Force) aircraft compromised,” an Israeli military spokesman said.

Rocket sirens had sounded in the early morning in Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank and two Reuters witnesses heard an explosion a few minutes later.

The military said in its statement that one of the anti-aircraft missiles had been intercepted. The blast was heard as far away as Jerusalem, dozens of miles away. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

A Jordanian civil defense source said a projectile had landed in a village on the outskirts of the northern Jordanian city of Irbid, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Syrian and Israeli borders, causing light damage.

The source said army engineers were examining the object, believed to be fired from Syrian territory in the direction of Israel. Video posted on social media purported to show remnants of a rocket, possibly parts of the intercepting missile, though Reuters was unable to independently verify the footage.

“Overnight IAF (Israeli Air Force) aircraft targeted several targets in Syria. Several anti-aircraft missiles were launched from Syria following the mission and IDF (Israel Defence Force) Aerial Defence Systems intercepted one of the missiles,” the Israeli military said in its statement.

Israel has carried out dozens of strikes to prevent weapons smuggling to the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is fighting rebels alongside the Syrian army. However, the interception of a missile making its way over the Syrian border was an uncommon incident.

Syria’s army high command said in a statement on Friday that Israeli jets had breached Syrian air space early in the morning and attacked a military target near Palmyra, in what it described as an act of aggression that aided Islamic State.

It said its air defenses shot down one of the Israeli jets over what it called “occupied ground” and damaged another. Israel denies this.

Israeli media said the Syrian army had fired surface-to-air missiles at the Israeli aircraft. The military would not provide further details on the targets it struck, nor on the amount or type of projectiles launched at its forces.

An Israeli military source said Israel’s Arrow ballistic missile shield had identified an “incoming threat” and shot down one of the projectiles.

Last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss what he charged were Iran’s attempts to establish a permanent military foothold in Syria.

Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy, has been Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s staunchest backer and has provided militia fighters to help him. Israel is concerned Hezbollah, with which it fought a war in 2006, is trying to obtain sophisticated weapons it could use against Israel.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Jordan, Angus McDowall in Beirut; Sabreen Taha in Jerusalem and Jeffrey Heller in Modiin; Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Israel’s Netanyahu repeats promise to build new West Bank settlement

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he would honor his commitment to build a new settlement in the occupied West Bank, the first in two decades.

The Israeli leader made the remarks hours before meeting with Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy. Netanyahu said he hoped an agreement could be reached with Washington on future Israeli settlements on land Palestinians want for a state.

“To the settlers of Amona, I repeat, I gave you a commitment to build a new settlement and I will honor my commitment,” Netanyahu said in public remarks at the start of a cabinet meeting.

The Amona settlement, comprising some 40 homes, was built in 1995 without government authorization. It was razed last month after the Israeli supreme court ruled the homes must be removed because they were built on privately owned Palestinian land.

Netanyahu is under pressure from his far-right coalition partners to follow through on the promise to Amona’s residents. However, at a meeting in Washington, Trump asked him to “hold back on settlements for a little bit.”

“We are in talks with the White House and our intention is to reach an agreed policy for building in settlements which is agreeable to us, not only to the Americans,” Netanyahu said.

A new settlement would be the first built in the West Bank since 1999. Some 385,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank which is also home to 2.8 million Palestinians. Another 200,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014 and settlements are one of the most heated issues. Palestinians want the West Bank and East Jerusalem for their own state, along with the Gaza Strip.

Most countries consider Israeli settlements, built on land captured in the 1967 Middle East war, to be illegal. Israel disagrees, citing historical and political links to the land, as well as security interests.

In a rare meeting for a U.S. envoy, settler leaders said they met with Greenblatt on Thursday. On his first visit to the Middle East as Trump’s envoy, Greenblatt also met with Jordanian King Abdullah in Amman and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. His meeting with Netanyahu will be their second this week.

Abbas told the Qatari newspaper Al-Watan in an interview that Greenblatt did not make any proposals and had come to listen and report back to Trump.

“When we meet the American president there will be clear answers to the things he has heard from us and it should be enough for him to get a clear view … and propose suitable solutions,” Abbas was quoted as saying.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell, writing by Ori Lewis, editing by Larry King)

Israel shuts Palestinian map office citing sovereignty breach

Israeli border police officers stand guard outside the building where Israeli security officers closed a Palestinian map office complying with an Israeli police order to close the office, in the Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel ordered the closure of an office in Arab East Jerusalem on Tuesday as it was suspected of being funded by the Palestinian Authority and involved with monitoring the sale of Palestinian property to Jews, police said.

Israel forbids any official activity by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, saying it breaches Israel’s sovereignty over the city, which it has declared its indivisible capital, a move not recognized internationally.

Israel’s internal security minister said the office, which drafts maps, was “monitoring and documenting” Palestinian-owned land in East Jerusalem, scrutinizing changes Israel has made to the terrain and passing on the names of landowners planning to sell.

“Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan ordered the closure of the Palestinian map office which has resumed operations in Beit Hanina in Jerusalem,” a police statement said.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat called the closure a “provocative act” and part of an effort by Israel “to erase any Palestinian presence in the city”.

However, in a statement Erdan said: “The Palestinian map office is part of the PA’s plan to harm our sovereignty in Jerusalem and to threaten Arabs selling real estate to Jews in the city. I will continue to act firmly to prevent any Palestinian government foothold in Jerusalem.”

The office, in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood in the northern part of Jerusalem, is run by geographer Khalil Tafakji. Police said that a 65-year-old Jerusalem resident was arrested and many documents and computers were seized.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, together with the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israel occupied East Jerusalem after capturing it in a 1967 war, a move not recognized internationally.

Since annexing East Jerusalem in 1980, Israel has greatly expanded its presence in that part of the city, building settlements and major pieces of infrastructure. Private Jewish groups have also sought to buy up Palestinian homes in eastern neighborhoods to expand the Jewish presence in the east.

(Reporting by Ammar Awad, Writing by Ori Lewis, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

Iran’s presence in Syrian blocks peace deal, Netanyahu tells Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow, Russia, March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Pavel Golovkin/Pool

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday there could never be peace in Syria as long as there was an Iranian presence there.

“We discussed at length the matter of Iran, its objectives and intentions in Syria, and I clarified that there cannot be a peace deal in Syria when Iran is there and declares its intention to destroy Israel,” Netanyahu said in footage supplied by his office after their meeting.

Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy, has been embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s staunchest backer and has provided militia fighters to help him in the country’s civil war.

“(Iran) is arming itself and its forces against Israel including from Syria territory and is, in fact, gaining a foothold to continue the fight against Israel,” he said in reply to a reporter’s question.

“There cannot be peace when they continue the war and therefore they have to be removed.”

Russia, also Assad’s ally, is seen as holding the balance of power in achieving a deal on Syria’s future. In Geneva last week, the first U.N.-led Syria peace talks in a year ended without a breakthrough.

Israeli leaders have pointed to Tehran’s steadily increasing influence in the region during the six-year-old Syrian conflict, whether via its own Revolutionary Guard forces or Shi’ite Muslim proxies, especially Hezbollah.

Last year, Avi Dichter, the chair of Israel’s foreign affairs and defense committee, said Iran had tried several times in the past to move forces into the Syrian Golan Heights, next to territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Dichter said those moves were repelled, but gave no details.

Netanyahu has said that Israel has carried out dozens of strikes to prevent weapons smuggling to the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah via Syria. Two years ago, Israel and Russia agreed to coordinate military actions over Syria in order to avoid accidentally trading fire.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; editing by Andrew Roche)

Israel removes settlers from homes on private Palestinian land

A pro-settlement activist climbs onto a rooftop of a house to resist evacuation of some houses in the settlement of Ofra in the occupied West Bank, during an operation by Israeli forces to evict the houses. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

By Eli Berzlon

OFRA, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli police began removing settlers and hundreds of supporters on Tuesday from nine houses built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

Police carried some of the settlers and protesters out of the red-roofed structures in the settlement of Ofra, while others walked out, escorted by officers.

Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the demolition of nine buildings in the settlement of more than 3,000 people after finding that those homes were constructed on land where Palestinians proved ownership.

Such judicial rulings upholding Palestinian property rights have riled Israel’s right-wing, as it promotes plans to expand construction in settlements built on occupied territory Palestinians seek for a state.

In one home in Ofra, police and protesters, mainly youths, linked arms and swayed in prayer before the youngsters, offering passive resistance, were taken outside.

“We feel that this is not right at all, what’s being done here: the destruction of these homes in the center of a Jewish town, in the center of a populated town that was established legally 42 years ago,” said Eliana Passentin, a spokeswoman for the local settler regional council.

There was little initial sign of the kind of violence that accompanied a larger-scale evacuation on Feb. 2 of Amona, a West Bank settlement-outpost built without Israeli government permission in 1995.

More than 100 youngsters had protested against the removal of Amona’s 300 settlers. Some 60 officers and at least four demonstrators were hurt in scuffles there that included bleach being thrown at police.

Most countries consider all Israeli settlements on land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war to be illegal. Israel disagrees, citing biblical, historical and political links to the land as well as security interests.

Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, which Israeli forces left in 2005, with East Jerusalem as its capital. They say settlement construction could deny them a viable and contiguous country.

Some 550,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem, areas that are home to more than 2.6 million Palestinians.

Three weeks ago, Israel’s parliament retroactively legalized about 4,000 settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land. The new law did not apply to Amona or the nine dwellings in Ofra because of standing court rulings.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January, Israel has announced plans to build 6,000 more settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

But at a White House news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Feb. 15, Trump startled the Israeli leader by saying he would like to see him “hold back on settlements for a bit”. Netanyahu later said he hoped to “reach an understanding” with Trump on settlements.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Israel bans Human Right Watch worker, accuses group of peddling pro-Palestinian line

FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during an event marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marked on January 27, at the Yad Vashem synagogue in Jerusalem January 26, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel has denied a work permit to a Human Rights Watch researcher, accusing the group of serving as Palestinian propagandists in a move the U.S.-based organisation called an “ominous turn”.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said the decision had been taken because of HRW’s “extreme, hostile anti-Israel agenda which was working at the service of Palestinian propaganda…in a totally biased manner.”

The news emerged as Israel faced criticism from the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva over the 18-month jail sentence handed to an Israeli soldier who shot an incapacitated Palestinian assailant in the head. The council called it an “apparent extrajudicial execution of an unarmed man”.

U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the sentence given to soldier Elor Azaria was “excessively lenient” and part of a “chronic culture of impunity” for Israeli abuse of Palestinians.

Many Israelis, particularly from the right-wing, opposed the prosecution of Azaria for killing Abdel Fattah al-Sharif Elor, who had attacked one of his comrades with a knife.

HRW said it was “disappointing that the Israeli government seems unable or unwilling to distinguish between justified criticisms of its actions and hostile political propaganda”.

The organisation had been granted unimpeded access to Israel and the West Bank for three decades. Israel had now joined Cuba, Egypt, North Korea, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela as countries that have impeded its access, HRW said.

In its letter, the Israeli immigration office said the Foreign Ministry had advised it that HRW’s work amounted to “Palestinian propaganda under the false banner of human rights”.

“Because of this, we recommend denying the permit,” it said.

The U.S. State Department said it strongly disagreed with Israel’s characterisation of HRW, which it considers a credible human rights organisation.

“Even though we do not agree with all of their assertions or conclusions, given the seriousness of their efforts, we support the importance of the work they do. We reference HRW reports in our own reporting,” acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

Israeli spokesman Nahshon said the decision was a one-off and did not represent a change in policy towards NGOs. The HRW representative could enter Israel on a tourist visa and the work visa application may be reconsidered if an appeal is lodged.

Last year, a new law limited foreign funding for NGOs which Israel considers critical of its policies. The law was heavily criticised by the European Union.

Many of the Israeli NGOs that receive support from foreign governments oppose the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government towards the Palestinians.

Israel has come under renewed international criticism for its expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, seen as an obstacle to resolving the Israeli-Palestiniam conflict.

The prospects of peace talks, already at a stalemate, were thrown into additional uncertainty this month when new U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to abandoned a long-standing commitment to a two-state solution.

Israel also dismissed the U.N. council’s criticism of the Palestinian’s killing.

“The (council) has proven once more that according to it’s twisted scale, one bullet fired by Azaria at a terrorist is more severe than the millions of bullets that murder innocent people in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Yemen. This is a council of hatred of Israel, not a human rights council,” Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on social media.

Israel says the council is biased against it due to its frequent resolutions condemning Israeli settlements and practices in the Gaza Strip.

At least 235 Palestinians have been killed in violence in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza since October 2015. Israel says that at least 158 of those killed were assailants and others died during clashes and protests. Two American tourists and 37 Israelis have also been killed.

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Washington and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)