Israel is moving forward on plans to build more than 1,700 homes for settlers in the West Bank, the settlement watchdog Peace Now said Thursday.
Peace Now said the housing was spread over 10 settlements, some deep inside the West Bank in areas the Palestinians want for a future state. About 1,000 units were in the initial stages of approval, whereas 700 received near-final approval.
The housing approvals come days ahead of national elections in Israel, the third straight vote in less than a year after the previous two ended inconclusively. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival and has hoped to boost his pro-settler support by granting new housing approvals in the settlements, including in a key neighborhood of east Jerusalem earlier this week. A military planning committee granted Thursday's approvals.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks to the U.S. Ambassador David Friedman during visit to Ariel settlement in the West Bank, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020. (AP PhotoSebastian Scheiner, Pool)
The approvals also come weeks after the Trump administration unveiled its long-anticipated Mideast plan, which sides with Israel on many of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s main points of contention.
It envisions Israel annexing parts of the West Bank, including its 120 settlements and the 500,000 settlers who live there. It falls short of granting the Palestinians a state, offering them limited autonomy over disjointed chunks of land but only if they meet a set of stringent demands that would require them to drastically alter what has been their baseline for negotiations for decades.
The Palestinians want the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war — for their hoped-for state. The Palestinians, along with much of the international community, consider settlements illegal and see them as an obstacle to creating a viable Palestinian state.
Since President Donald Trump’s election, Israel has been emboldened by an American leader who unlike most of his predecessors has been lenient in his approach to settlement building. Netanyahu has embarked on a settlement building spree during Trump's tenure and has promised to annex the strategic Jordan Valley.
Since the unveiling of the Mideast initiative, Netanyahu has promise to charge ahead immediately with annexing the settlements, but he quickly backtracked, apparently after White House officials took issue with his premature zeal.
Israeli police and Palestinian youths clashed again at a major Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims on Friday despite a temporary halt to Jewish visits to the site, which are seen as a provocation by the Palestinians.
Palestinians and Israeli police have regularly clashed at the site for the last week at a time of heightened tensions in the region following a string of deadly attacks inside Israel and arrest raids in the occupied West Bank. Three rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel.
Palestinian youths hurled stones toward police at a gate leading into the compound, according to two Palestinian witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns. The police, in full riot gear, then entered the compound, firing rubber bullets and stun grenades.
Israeli police clash with Palestinian protesters at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, Friday, April 22, 2022. (AP PhotoMahmoud Illean)
The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said nine Palestinians were wounded, two of them seriously.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City is the third holiest site in Islam. The sprawling esplanade on which it is built is the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of two Jewish temples in antiquity. It lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and clashes there have often ignited violence elsewhere.
Tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers are expected at the site later in the day for the main weekly prayers.
Israeli police move behind riot shields during clashes with Palestinian protesters at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, Friday, April 22, 2022. (AP PhotoMahmoud Illean)
Palestinians and neighboring Jordan, the custodian of the site, accuse Israel of violating longstanding arrangements by allowing increasingly large numbers of Jews to visit the site under police escort.
A longstanding prohibition on Jews praying at the site has eroded in recent years, fueling fears among Palestinians that Israel plans to take over the site or partition it.
Israel says it remains committed to the status quo and blames the violence on incitement by the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza. It says its security forces are acting to thwart rock-throwers in order to ensure freedom of worship for Jews and Muslims.
Visits by Jewish groups were halted beginning Friday for the last 10 days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as they have been in the past.
This year, the fasting month coincided with the Jewish Passover and major Christian holidays, with tens of thousands of people from all three faiths flocking to the Old City after the lifting of most coronavirus restrictions.
