Tag Archives: Palestine

Israeli troops shoot dead a Palestinian teen hurling Molotov, army says

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian 17-year-old in the occupied West Bank on Friday, hospital officials said, and the Israeli military said he had been about to throw a petrol bomb.

More than four months of intensified violence in the region have raised concern of wider escalation, a decade after the last Palestinian uprising subsided.

The Israeli military said soldiers spotted the youth holding a lit Molotov Cocktail and about to throw it at vehicles traveling along a main West Bank highway where Israeli cars are often targeted by Palestinians hurling rocks and petrol bombs.

“The force responded to the immediate threat, prevented the attack, and shot one of the assailants,” an Israeli military spokeswoman said. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed his death and age.

A wave of stabbings, shootings and car-rammings carried out by Palestinians has killed 27 Israelis and a U.S. citizen since October. Israeli forces have killed at least 156 Palestinians, 101 of them assailants, according to authorities. Most of the others died during violent protests.

The bloodshed has been partly fueled by Palestinian frustration over long-stalled peace talks which have failed to deliver them an independent state and anger at perceived Jewish encroachment on a contested Jerusalem shrine.

(Reporting by Ali Sawafta and Maayan Lubell; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Israeli teenagers get long jail terms for Palestinian youth’s murder

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli court jailed two Jewish youths on Thursday, one for life and the other for 21 years, for the murder of a Palestinian teenager in Jerusalem, a crime that helped trigger the 2014 Gaza war.

The youths – unnamed because of their age – and a man, who organized the murder, were found guilty in November of the abduction, bludgeoning, strangling and burning of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair on July 2, 2014.

All of them had confessed and said the murder was revenge for the killing of three Israeli youths by Hamas in the occupied West Bank days beforehand, prosecutors said.

The incidents raised tensions, and a seven-week Israeli offensive against the Hamas-run Gaza Strip began on July 8 after cross-border Palestinian rocket attacks and an Israeli roundup of suspected militants in the West Bank.

Tensions are intensifying again, with a wave of Palestinian street attacks against Israelis now in its fifth month, fueled in part by Israeli building on land the Palestinians want for an independent state, stalled peace talks, and Muslim anger at perceived Jewish encroachment on a contested Jerusalem shrine.

Abu Khudair’s father, Hussein, told reporters at Jerusalem District Court that the family wanted an appeal to the Supreme Court to give the youngest defendant a life prison term as well. The boys were 17 and 16 when they murdered Abu Khudair.

“If there is no apartheid or racism (in Israel), you will have to do this,” Hussein Abu Khudair said, saying authorities had been easy on the teenager because he is a Jew not an Arab.

The state had sought life prison terms for both teenagers, but voiced satisfaction with Thursday’s sentencing.

“I hope that the message will be relayed that actions of this kind are revolting and that we as a society will not accept them,” prosecutor Uri Korb told reporters.

The man who organized Abu Khudair’s murder, Yosef Haim Ben-David, lodged an insanity plea that has held up his formal conviction and sentencing. A court review of his psychological competence is scheduled for next week.

Korb said that it was too early to know whether the state would appeal the lesser sentence of the younger teen and that the state hoped to quash Ben-David’s insanity plea, see him jailed for life and “bring closure of this in the near future”.

Avi Himi, lawyer for the younger teenager, said he would advise his client to appeal. “I believe the minor did take part in the incident but not in the actual murder and should therefore have been acquitted of the murder charge,” he said.

A lawyer for the older youth did not immediately comment on his client’s sentence. Life terms in Israel have often been commuted to 25 years’ imprisonment, with reductions of terms possible under individual parole considerations or clemency.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Israelis near Gaza fear Hamas is tunneling beneath them

PRI GAN, Israel/GAZA (Reuters) – Nissim Hakmon and his neighbors say they hear banging and clattering at night. They are convinced it can only mean one thing: Hamas is tunneling under their homes from Gaza and will one day emerge, guns blazing, to attack or kidnap them.

The Israeli government says its investigations have not come up with any evidence the night-time noises reported by villagers living near Gaza emanate from tunnels, but assertions by Hamas of extensive cross-border digging has only fueled concern.

“The fear among everyone here is constant,” Hakmon told Reuters in his village of Pri Gan, near the Gaza Strip. “I’ve heard the sound of a hammer and chisel and my neighbor says she can hear them digging under the cement. We’re stressed out.”

The Palestinian Islamist group which runs Gaza used tunnels running out of the strip to give its heavily outgunned fighters the advantage of surprise during its 2014 war with Israel.

Twelve soldiers were killed by Hamas tunnel raiders and one was kidnapped. No civilians have been targeted by the fighters, who describe the tunnels as a defensive tool in case of future conflict. But that is little reassurance to the villagers.

Underground infiltration by gunmen from Gaza “is something we know deep inside is just a matter of time, even though we tell the kids everything is okay,” Hakmon said.

POLITICAL PRESSURE

Hakmon’s worry is being echoed by some others who live on the Gaza periphery, putting extra political pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his handling of the standoff with the Palestinian territory since the war in 2014.

Beset by a months-long surge of street attacks by Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Israel has little desire to see a fresh flare-up in Gaza, where Hamas has mostly held its fire in the past 18 months.

The movement announced last week it had rehabilitated cross-border tunnels destroyed during the war – a muscle-flexing message to Israel, its security partner Egypt and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Islamists’ U.S.-backed rival.

“The resistance factions are in a state of ongoing preparation underground, above ground, on land and sea,” Hamas deputy leader Ismail Haniyeh said at a rally called to honor seven tunnelers who were killed in a cave-in on Tuesday.

Hamas has twice the number of tunnels as those used in the Vietnam war against U.S. forces, Haniyeh said – a tall order, but bold enough a claim to shore up the worries voiced in Pri Gan, 4 km (2 miles) away from the Gaza border, and elsewhere.

The residents’ alarm, amplified by local media, and calls for preemptive military action by opposition politicians, roused Netanyahu to warn Hamas on Sunday.

“Should we be attacked through Gaza Strip tunnels, we will take forceful action against Hamas, with far greater force than was used in Protective Edge,” he said, referring to the 2014 war, which killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, most civilians.

“We are working systematically and level-headedly against all threats, including the Hamas threat, through both defensive and offensive measures.”

Israel lost six civilians in the war as well as 67 soldiers.

Military engineers unearthed and destroyed 32 tunnels, Israeli officials say, and have since, with U.S. help, been developing a half-dozen technologies for detecting digs along the sandy, 65-km (40 mile) frontier with Gaza.

When those counter-measures might be ready is a closely guarded secret. Hamas, for its part, may be hoping to lay down as many new tunnels as possible before the system is in place.

“We are not asking for war, but getting ready for one should Israel launch it,” Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida said.

“GUNS DRAWN”

Israel’s refusal to elaborate on its anti-tunnel efforts has fanned fears in the 30-odd villages near the Gaza frontier.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon told Israel Radio on Monday that military experts “rush anywhere that someone claims to hear noises (but) those tests have not shown that the noise is from the digging of tunnels”.

The conservative government has found itself in the unfamiliar situation of preaching restraint after center-left opposition leader Isaac Herzog demanded any tunnels be bombed.

“What are the prime minister and defense minister waiting for? For terrorists to surface with guns drawn?” Herzog said.

Yaalon shot back that such discussions should be held behind closed doors, and argued that the passive build-up of an enemy’s capabilities did not necessarily warrant initiating hostilities.

“It might also be proposed that we go and attack (Lebanese guerrilla group) Hezbollah’s 100,000 rockets in the north or the hundreds of missiles that Iran has aimed at us,” Yaalon said.

Hakmon does not share the government’s equanimity, and says he and other Pri Gan residents are going around armed, locking their doors and shuttering their windows as a precaution.

“We are waiting for the army, or, God forbid, for the worst to happen,” he said.

(Writing by Dan Williams; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

U.N. chief tells Israel, Palestine to read ‘writing on the wall’

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is concerned a stalemate in the peace process between Israel and Palestinians is reaching the point of no return for a two-state solution.

“The time has come for Israelis, Palestinians and the international community to read the writing on the wall: The status quo is untenable,” Ban wrote in an opinion piece published in the New York Times late on Sunday. “Keeping another people under indefinite occupation undermines the security and the future of both Israelis and Palestinians.”

The Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – areas Israel captured in a 1967 war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Ban last week, saying he gave a “tailwind to terrorism” after the secretary-general put some of the blame on Israel for four months of stabbings and car rammings by Palestinians.

Ban, who will step down at the end of 2016 after 10 years as U.N. chief, had told the U.N. Security Council that it is “human nature to react to occupation.”

“I will always stand up to those who challenge Israel’s right to exist,” Ban said in the Times, “just as I will always defend the right of Palestinians to have a state of their own. That is why I am so concerned that we are reaching a point of no return for the two-state solution.”

The United States and the European Union – Israel’s closest allies – also have had unusually stern criticism of Israel in recent weeks, reflecting their frustrations with Netanyahu’s right-wing government.

“When heartfelt concerns about shortsighted or morally damaging policies emanate from so many sources, including Israel’s closest friends, it cannot be sustainable to keep lashing out at every well-intentioned critic,” Ban wrote.

U.S.-led efforts to broker a “two-state solution” collapsed in 2014. France said on Friday it will recognize a Palestinian state if a final push that Paris plans to lead for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians fails.

“The stalemate carries grave risks for both sides: a continuation of the deadly wave of terrorism and killings; the collapse of the Palestinian Authority; greater isolation of and international pressure on Israel,” Ban wrote.

He said the Palestinians must bring Gaza and the West Bank under a single democratic-governing authority and take action to stop attacks on Israel, including an immediate end to the building of Gaza tunnels into Israel.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Bill Trott)

Netanyahu rejects French ultimatum on Palestinian statehood

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Sunday for a more “sober” approach towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in dismissing a French peace initiative as only encouraging Palestinians to shun compromise.

The proposal on Friday by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius for an international peace conference was the latest sign of Western frustration over the absence of movement toward a two-state solution since the collapse of U.S.-brokered negotiations in 2014.

Fabius said that if the French plan did not break the deadlock, Paris would recognize a Palestinian state.

Such a step would raise concern in Israel that other European countries, also long opposed to its settlement-building in occupied territory, would follow suit.

In public remarks to his cabinet, Netanyahu did not explicitly reject the notion of an international conference – an aide said Israel would examine such a request once it was received – but he made clear that reported details of the plan made it a non-starter.

Netanyahu said a “threat” to recognize a Palestinian state if France’s peace efforts did not succeed, constituted “an incentive to the Palestinians to come along and not compromise”.

“I assess that there will be a sobering up regarding this matter,” Netanyahu added. “In any event, we will make effort so that there is a sobering up here, and our position is very clear: We are prepared to enter direct negotiation without preconditions and without dictated terms.”

On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the French proposal, telling an African summit in Ethiopia that “the status quo cannot continue”.

But Washington responded with caution to the French move, saying it continued to prefer that Israel and the Palestinians reach an agreement on final-status issues through direct talks.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Abbas and the two discussed the French initiative and “the tense political situation in the region,” WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency reported on Sunday.

While aware the initiative may struggle to get off the ground, French officials said Paris had a responsibility to act now in the face of Israeli settlement activity and the prospect of continued diplomatic inaction as the United States focuses on a presidential election in November.

And, the officials said, Netanyahu had gone a step too far in accusing U.N. Secretary of State Ban Ki-moon of giving a “tailwind to terrorism” by laying some of the blame for four months of stabbings and car rammings by Palestinians at Israel’s door. Ban angered Israel by saying last week that it is “human nature to react to occupation”.

The United States, European Union – Israel’s closest allies – have also issued unusually stern criticism of Israel in recent weeks, reflecting their own frustration with the policies of Netanyahu’s right-wing government.

The criticism, particularly about the settlements, where some 550,000 Jews live in around 250 communities scattered across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, has raised Palestinian hopes that world powers might finally be minded to support a U.N. resolution condemning Israel’s policy outright.

WEST BANK ATTACK

Since October, Palestinian attacks, partly fueled by tensions over the freeze in peace talks, have killed 26 Israelis and a U.S. citizen.

In an incident on Sunday, a Palestinian gunman wounded three Israelis near the West Bank settlement of Beit El and was then shot dead by soldiers, the Israeli army said. Palestinian officials said he worked as a bodyguard for a Palestinian prosecutor in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Shortly after that attack, a Palestinian motorist was shot and wounded when he tried to run down soldiers at a military checkpoint in the West Bank, the army said.

Over the past four months, Israeli forces have killed at least 152 Palestinians, 98 of them assailants according to authorities. Most the others have died in violent protests.

“I don’t see anything that warrants living as long as the occupation smothers us and kills our brothers and sisters … You were first and I am following you,” the Beit El assailant, Amjad Abu Omar, wrote on Facebook.

Palestinians seek a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, parts of which have been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war. Palestine has non-member observer status at the United Nations and its flag flies with those of member states at UN headquarters in New York.

Sweden became the first EU member nation to recognize the Palestinian state in 2014. A total of 136 U.N.-member countries, mostly in Africa, Latin America and Asia, now do so.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Stephen Powell)

France to recognize Palestinian state unless deadlock with Israel broken

PARIS (Reuters) – France will recognize a Palestinian state if a final push that Paris plans to lead for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians fails, its foreign minister said on Friday.

U.S.-led efforts to broker peace for a two-state solution collapsed in April 2014 and since then there have been no serious efforts to resume talks.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has repeatedly warned that letting the status quo continue risks killing off a two-state solution and playing into the hands of Islamic State militants.

Last year he failed in efforts to get the United States on board to push for a U.N. Security Council resolution to set parameters for talks between the two sides and set a final deadline for a deal.

The expansions of settlements by Israel since then have been described by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as “provocative acts” that raise questions about its commitment to a two-state solution.

“We cannot let the two-state solution disintegrate. It is our responsibility as a U.N. Security Council member and a power seeking peace,” Fabius told an annual gathering of foreign diplomats.

Fabius has previously called for an international support group comprising Arab states, the European Union and U.N. Security Council members that would essentially force the two sides to compromise.

He said Paris would begin preparing in the “coming weeks” an international conference bringing together the parties and their main partners, American, European and Arab.

If this last attempt at finding a solution hits a wall, “well … in this case, we need to face our responsibilities by recognizing the Palestinian state”, he said.

A French diplomatic source said the aim was to launch the conference before the summer and that it would not be accompanied by a U.N. Security Council resolution, which would inevitably fail.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously criticized recent French initiatives, calling them “counter-productive”.

Despite anger in the U.S. administration over Israeli settlements, there is little prospect of U.S. President Barack Obama supporting any initiative that could upset the U.S. Jewish lobby 10 months before an election.

A U.S. official responded cautiously to Fabius’ statement.

“The U.S. position on this issue has been clear. We continue to believe that the preferred path to resolve this conflict is for the parties to reach an agreement on final status issues directly,” the official said.

Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said he welcomed the move.

“There is no doubt that a French recognition of the Palestinian state will contribute to building peace and stability in the region,” he said.

An Israeli official, who declined to be identified, said:

“The foreign minister of France says up front that if his initiative reaches a dead end, France will recognise a Palestinian state. This statement constitutes an incentive for the Palestinians to bring about a dead end. Negotiations cannot be held nor peace achieved in this manner.”

Palestine has non-member observer status at the United Nations and its flag flies with those of member states at UN headquarters in New York. Sweden became the first EU member nation to recognise the Palestinian state in 2014 and has been followed by several others.

Palestinians seek a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, parts of which have been occupied by Israel since a 1967 war.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams, Luke Baker in Jerusalem and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Andrew Roche and James Dalgleish)

Israel feels the heat of U.S., EU and U.N. criticism

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The United States, European Union and the United Nations have issued unusually stern criticism of Israel, provoking a sharp response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and raising Palestinians’ hopes of steps against their neighbor.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday described Israel’s settlements as “provocative acts” that raised questions about its commitment to a two-state solution, nearly 50 years after occupying lands the Palestinians seek for a state.

Ban also laid some of the blame for four months of stabbings and car rammings by Palestinians at Israel’s door, saying “as oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism”.

Netanyahu’s response was quick and furious. Ban’s remarks “give a tailwind to terrorism”, he said, and ignore the fact “Palestinian murderers do not want to build a state”.

“The U.N. lost its neutrality and moral force a long time ago,” he added, singling Ban out for personal criticism.

While terse words between Israel and the United Nations are nothing new, Israel’s closest allies, the United States and the European Union, have publicly expressed their own frustration with the policies of Netanyahu’s right-wing government.

Speaking at a security conference last week, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro questioned how equitably justice is applied in the occupied West Bank, saying: “At times there seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians.”

That, too, drew an angry response from Netanyahu. Shapiro later said he regretted the timing of his remarks, made on the day an Israeli mother of six, stabbed to death by a Palestinian in a West Bank settlement, was buried.

The European Union’s policy of labeling products made in Israeli settlements has provoked similar anger from officials, while Sweden’s foreign minister was branded an anti-Semite after calling for an independent investigation into Israel’s efforts to quell the current wave of violence.

NOT SO RESOLVED

The criticism, particularly about the settlements, where some 550,000 Jews live in around 250 communities scattered across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, has raised Palestinian hopes that world powers might finally be minded to support a U.N. resolution condemning Israel’s policy outright.

“We are continuing our contacts with the international community… and will go to the Security Council for a resolution against the colonial settlement enterprise,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator, said last week.

The last attempt at such a resolution failed in 2011 after the United States vetoed it, saying it harmed the chances for peace. The feeling among Palestinian diplomats now is that the United States may be less inclined to veto given the absence of peace talks and the depth of U.S. frustration with Israel.

Israeli diplomats are also wary of that possibility.

“It’s always a risk and we are extremely attentive to it,” said Emmanuel Nahshon, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman.

“There has indeed been a lot of criticism of Israel recently, but I don’t know whether that necessarily translates into a U.N. resolution.”

He said there had been “anti-Israeli resolutions” at the United Nations in the past, regardless of developments on the ground.

The Palestinians hope France, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, might sponsor such a resolution, but it is unclear whether the French have the appetite for such a course.

“If the French want to play a useful and positive role in the Middle East, they can’t stand behind an initiative that is against Israel and only antagonizes us,” said Nahshon.

Even if a resolution were to be drafted, diplomats played down its prospects. While President Barack Obama may have a fractious relationship with Netanyahu, he is unlikely to want to isolate Israel in a U.S. election year, with Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton keen to draw the Jewish vote.

“The logic might seem to be there, but when it comes to it, the United States isn’t going to let such a resolution pass,” said a European diplomat who has worked at the United Nations.

(Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Two Palestinians shot dead after stabbing two Israelis in West Bank, police say

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Two Palestinians were shot dead after stabbing two Israeli women on Monday in the West Bank, police said, in an emerging pattern of assaults inside Jewish settlements in the occupied territory.

One of the women was in critical condition and the other sustained moderate wounds after the attack in Beit Horon, a settlement on a highway that links Jerusalem and coastal Tel Aviv and cuts through the foothills of the West Bank.

“The two terrorists were killed by security forces,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, adding that two explosive devices were found at the scene.

It was the latest incident in an almost four-month long surge of violence that has raised concern of wider escalation, a decade after the last Palestinian uprising subsided. It followed three stabbings last week inside settlements carried out by Palestinian teenagers, according to Israeli authorities.

Many of the attacks on Israelis at the start of the bloodshed occurred in Jerusalem and other cities. But much of the violence has shifted to the West Bank, where settlers live adjacent to Palestinian population centers.

On Saturday, a 13-year-old Palestinian girl, who according to an Israeli policewoman “had fought with her family and left home with a knife and intended to die”, tried to stab a security guard at a West Bank settlement and was then shot dead by him.

Since the start of October, Israeli forces have killed at least 151 Palestinians, 97 of them assailants according to authorities. Most the others have died in violent protests. Almost daily stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks by Palestinians have killed 25 Israelis and a U.S. citizen.

Many of the Palestinian assailants have been teenagers. The identities and ages of the alleged attackers on Monday were not immediately released.

On Jan. 17, an Israeli mother of six was stabbed to death at her home in a West Bank settlement and a 15-year-old Palestinian was arrested for the attack. A day later, Israeli troops shot and wounded a 17-year-old Palestinian who had stabbed and wounded a pregnant Israeli woman in a settlement.

The bloodshed has been fueled by various factors including frustration over the 2014 collapse of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the growth of Jewish settlements on land Palestinians seek for an independent state.

Palestinian leaders have said that with no breakthrough on the horizon, desperate youngsters see no future ahead. Israel says young Palestinians are being incited to violence by their leaders and Islamist groups that call for Israel’s destruction.

(Editing by Alison Williams)

Israeli troops evict Jewish settlers from West Bank homes

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli troops forcibly removed Jewish settlers on Friday from homes in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron that they said they had bought from Palestinians, prompting some right-wing lawmakers to threaten to withhold support for the government.

Ministers and members of parliament from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party decried Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon’s refusal to sign off on the settlers’ occupancy of the homes in a city where tensions between Israelis and Palestinians run high.

The settlers said they had bought the properties legally from Palestinian owners, but to live in the apartments they need Defence Ministry approval.

“To take occupancy of the homes, a number of actions are required, and none were carried out, which is why the trespassers were evicted,” Yaalon said in a statement.

A Netanyahu aide, who declined to be named, said that the prime minister backed Yaalon’s move, but added:

“In this case, not all the permits have been obtained. Once this happens, the settlers will be able to return, as has happened in past cases.”

Two right-wing lawmakers from Likud and another from the ultranationalist Jewish Home party said they would boycott parliamentary votes on Monday in protest at the move.

“It is forbidden to evict Jews from their homes and there will be consequences, we demand the prime minister’s involvement in the matter,” said Ayoub Kara, a Druze Arab Likud lawmaker.

TENSE CITY

Hebron, a city of about 220,000 Palestinians, has long been a source of tension, fueled by the presence of around 1,000 Jewish settlers who live in the heart of the city, protected by Israeli troops.

A holy site in the center is divided between the faiths. One half is known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs, where the biblical figures Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives are said to be buried. The other, where the Ibrahimi mosque stands, is known to Muslims as the Sanctuary of Abraham.

Tourism Minister Yariv Levin said Yaalon’s move was “scandalous”, while Diaspora Affairs Minister Zeev Elkin described it as “wrong”.

The settlers moved into the apartments on Thursday and were evicted on Friday morning. Television footage showed scuffles as the police forced them out. Police said about 80 settlers had been removed without major incident.

Israeli settlements in occupied territory, deemed illegal by most countries, are a fundamental issue in the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Israel confirmed on Thursday that it was planning to appropriate a large tract of land in the West Bank, drawing condemnation from the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the United States, Israel’s closest ally.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Israel confirms plans to seize West Bank farmland, drawing criticism

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel confirmed on Thursday it was planning to appropriate a large tract of fertile land in the occupied West Bank, close to Jordan, a move likely to exacerbate tensions with Western allies and already drawing international condemnation.

In an email sent to Reuters, COGAT, a unit of Israel’s Defence Ministry, said the political decision to seize the territory had been taken and “the lands are in the final stages of being declared state lands”.

The appropriation, covers 154 hectares (380 acres) in the Jordan Valley close to Jericho, an area where Israel already has many settlement farms built on land Palestinians seek for a state. It is the largest land seizure since August 2014.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon denounced the move and Palestinian officials said they would push for a resolution at the United Nations against Israel’s settlement policies.

“Settlement activities are a violation of international law and run counter to the public pronouncements of the government of Israel supporting a two-state solution to the conflict,” Ban said in a statement.

The land, in an area fully under Israeli civilian and military control and already used by Jewish settlers to farm dates, is situated near the northern tip of the Dead Sea.

Palestinian officials denounced the seizure.

“Israel is stealing land specially in the Jordan Valley under the pretext it wants to annex it,” Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Reuters. “This should be a reason for a real and effective intervention by the international community to end such a flagrant and grave aggression which kills all chances of peace.”

The United States, whose ambassador angered Israel this week with criticism of its West Bank policy, said it was strongly opposed to any moves that accelerate settlement expansion.

“We believe they’re fundamentally incompatible with a two-state solution and call into question, frankly, the Israeli government’s commitment to a two-state solution,” Deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Wednesday.

In a development likely to further upset Europe, Israeli forces demolished six structures in the West Bank funded by the EU’s humanitarian arm. The structures were dwellings and latrines for Bedouins living in an area known as E1 – a particularly sensitive zone between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.

Israel has not built settlements in E1, with construction considered a “red line” by the United States and the EU. It could potentially split the West Bank, cutting Palestinians off from East Jerusalem, which they seek for their capital.

“This is the third time they demolished my house and every time I rebuilt it, this time also I will rebuild it and I am not leaving here. If we leave they will turn the place into a closed military zone,” said Saleem Jahaleen, whose home was razed.

RISING TENSION

Israeli officals did not respond to requests for comment on the demolitions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week the EU was building illegally in the area.

“They’re building without authorization, against the accepted rules, and there’s a clear attempt to create political realities,” he told the foreign media.

Netanyahu was scheduled to address the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday. He met U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry there but it was not clear if the issue was raised.

The Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

There are now about 550,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem combined, according to Israeli government and think-tank statistics. About 350,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem and 2.7 million in West Bank.

Israel is hoping that in any final agreement with the Palestinians it will be able to keep large settlement blocs including in the Jordan Valley, both for security and agricultural purposes. The Palestinians are adamantly opposed.

The last round of peace talks broke down in April 2014 and Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged in recent months.

Since the start of October, Palestinian stabbings, car-rammings and shootings have killed 25 Israelis and a U.S. citizen. In the same period, at least 148 Palestinians have been killed, 94 of whom Israel has described as assailants.

Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said on Thursday he had revoked the residency rights of four Jerusalem Palestinians involved in two fatal attacks on Israelis, one in September and one in October, a spokeswoman said.

The measure, described as rare, was meant to deter others from carrying out attacks, Deri said in a statement.

(Reporting by Maayan Lubell, Luke Baker, Ali Sawafta; Nidal al-Mughrabi; editing by Luke Baker and Angus MacSwan)