Israel clears final hurdle to start settlement construction that would cut the West Bank in two

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has cleared the final hurdle before starting construction on a contentious settlement project near Jerusalem that would effectively cut the West Bank in two, according to a government tender.

The tender, which seeks bids from developers, would clear the way to begin construction of the E1 project.

The anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now first reported the tender. Yoni Mizrahi, who runs the group’s settlement watch division, said initial work could begin within the month.

Settlement development in E1, an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades, but was frozen due to U.S. pressure during previous administrations.

The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.

The E1 project is especially contentious because it runs from the outskirts of Jerusalem deep into the occupied West Bank. Critics say it would prevent the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state in the territory.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who oversees settlement policy, has long pushed for the plan to become a reality.

“The Palestinian state is being erased from the table not with slogans but with actions,” he said in August, when Israel gave final approval to the plan. “Every settlement, every neighborhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea.”

The tender, publicly accessible on the website for Israel’s Land Authority, calls for proposals to develop 3,401 housing units. Peace Now says the publication of the tender “reflects an accelerated effort to advance construction in E1.

Syrian and Israeli officials met Tuesday in Paris for U.S.-mediated talks intended to broker a security agreement to defuse tensions between the two countries. A joint statement issued after the meeting said it “centered on respect for Syria’s sovereignty and stability, Israel’s security, and prosperity for both countries.”

It said the two sides have agreed to establish a joint communication cell “to facilitate immediate and ongoing coordination on their intelligence sharing, military de-escalation, diplomatic engagement, and commercial opportunities under the supervision of the United States.” The cell would serve as a platform to address disputes and “prevent misunderstandings,” it said.

In December 2024, insurgents led by Syria’s now interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa ousted the country’s longtime autocratic leader, Bashar Assad, in a lightning offensive.

Al-Sharaa said that he has no desire for a conflict with Israel. But Israel was suspicious of the new Islamist-led leadership and quickly moved to seize control of a formerly U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria set up under a 1974 disengagement agreement. Israel has also launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian military facilities and periodic incursions into villages outside the buffer zone, which have sometimes led to violent confrontations with residents.

Syrian officials have said their priority in the talks is the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a return to the 1974 agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement Tuesday that Israel “stressed the importance of ensuring security for its citizens and preventing threats on its border” and of protecting the Druze minority in Syria, which also comprises a substantial minority in Israel.

The United Nations said that aid groups have enough food on hand to sustain people in Gaza for the first time since the war began more than two years ago.

“The January round is the first since October 2023 in which partners had sufficient stock to meet 100% of the minimum caloric standard,” U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Monday.

More aid has been reaching Gaza since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on Oct. 10.

However, the flow of humanitarian aid remains challenging amid Israel’s recent decision to revoke the licenses of more than three dozen organizations, including such prominent groups as Doctors Without Borders, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Oxfam.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief on Tuesday called on Israel to lift the restrictions to avert deaths from exposure, hunger and a lack of medicines, as thousands of displaced Palestinians return to what is left of their homes.

“To deliver aid rapidly, safely and at the scale required, international NGOs must be able to operate in a sustained and predictable way,” Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, said in a statement from the 27-nation bloc, referring to non-governmental organizations.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Tuesday that 11 people were injured during an Israeli raid at a university in the West Bank.

The president of Birzeit University, speaking at a press conference, said a group of about 20 Israeli military vehicles had stormed the gate and entered the campus. Video obtained by The Associated Press confirmed their presence on campus.

“Unfortunately, targeting the university is a recurring event,” said Talal Shahwan, the school’s president, who said the forces displayed “clear brutality.”

Israeli officials said military and border troops were sent to break up an anticipated gathering and soon found themselves facing a crowd of hundreds of people, some allegedly throwing rocks at them from rooftops.

They said they used targeted fire toward the “main violent individuals.”

A group representing major international media organizations on Tuesday criticized the Israeli government’s latest refusal to allow foreign journalists into Gaza, despite a three-month ceasefire.

Israel has barred the foreign media from entering Gaza since the war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023.

The Foreign Press Association has asked Israel’s Supreme Court to end the ban. After months of delays, the Israeli government this week told the court that it remains opposed to allowing international journalists into Gaza, citing security reasons.

The FPA, which represents dozens of major media organizations, including The Associated Press, expressed “its profound disappointment” with the government’s position and said it hoped judges would soon end the ban.

Palestinians walk amid buildings destroyed by Israeli air and ground operations in Gaza City Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians attend the funeral of Ahmed al-Qudra at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, after he was killed in an Israeli military strike, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians walk amid buildings destroyed by Israeli air and ground operations in Gaza City, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians walk amid buildings destroyed by Israeli air and ground operations in Gaza City Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians walk past a tent camp amid buildings destroyed by Israeli air and ground operations in Gaza City Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

FILE - View of an area near Maale Adumim in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says housing units will be built as part of the E1 settlement project, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File)

FILE - Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich arrives for a press conference about new settlement construction in the Israel-occupied West Bank near Maale Adumim, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File)

FILE - Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich holds a map that shows the E1 settlement project during a press conference near the settlement of Maale Adumim, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration will withdraw from dozens of international organizations, including the U.N.'s population agency and the U.N. treaty that establishes international climate negotiations, as the U.S. further retreats from global cooperation.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order suspending U.S. support for 66 organizations, agencies and commissions following his instructions for his administration to review participation in and funding for all international organizations, including those affiliated with the United Nations, according to a White House statement on social media.

Most of the targets are U.N.-related agencies, commissions and advisory panels that focus on climate, labor and other issues that the Trump administration has categorized as catering to diversity and “woke” initiatives.

“The Trump Administration has found these institutions to be redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity,” the State Department said in a statement.

Trump's decision to withdraw from organizations that foster cooperation among nations to address global challenges comes as his administration has launched military efforts or issued threats that have rattled allies and adversaries alike, including capturing autocratic Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and indicating an intention to take over Greenland.

The administration previously suspended support from agencies like the World Health Organization, the U.N. for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO as it has taken a larger, a-la-carte approach to paying its dues to the world body, picking which operations and agencies they believe align with Trump’s agenda and those which no longer serve U.S. interests.

“I think what we’re seeing is the crystallization of the U.S. approach to multilateralism, which is ‘my way or the highway,’” Daniel Forti, senior U.N. analyst at the International Crisis Group, said. “It's a very clear vision of wanting international cooperation on Washington’s own terms.”

It has marked a major shift from how previous administrations — both Republican and Democratic — have dealt with the U.N., and it has forced the world body, already undergoing its own internal reckoning, to respond with a series of staffing and program cuts.

Many independent nongovernmental agencies — some that work with the United Nations — have cited many project closures because of the U.S. administration’s decision last year to slash foreign assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

Despite the massive shift, the U.S. officials, including Trump himself, say they have seen the potential of the U.N. and want to instead focus taxpayer money on expanding American influence in many of the standard-setting U.N. initiatives where there is competition with China, like the International Telecommunications Union, the International Maritime Organization and the International Labor Organization.

The withdrawal from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, is the latest effort by Trump and his allies to distance the U.S. from international organizations focused on climate and addressing climate change.

UNFCC, the 1992 agreement between 198 countries to financially support climate change activities in developing countries, is the underlying treaty for the landmark Paris climate agreement. Trump — who calls climate change a hoax — withdrew from that agreement soon after reclaiming the White House.

Mainstream scientists say climate change is behind increasing instances of deadly and costly extreme weather, including flooding, droughts, wildfires, intense rainfall events and dangerous heat.

The U.S. withdrawal could hinder global efforts to curb greenhouse gases because it “gives other nations the excuse to delay their own actions and commitments,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who chairs the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that tracks countries’ carbon dioxide emissions.

It also will be difficult to achieve meaningful progress on climate change without cooperation from the U.S., one of the world’s largest emitters and economies, experts said.

The U.N.'s population agency, which provides sexual and reproductive health across the world, has long been a lightning rod for Republican opposition and Trump himself cut funding for the agency during his first term in office. He and other GOP officials have accused the agency of participating in “coercive abortion practices” in countries like China.

When President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, he restored funding for the agency. A State Department review conducted the following year found no evidence to support these claims.

Other organizations and agencies that the U.S. will quit include the Carbon Free Energy Compact, the United Nations University, the International Cotton Advisory Committee, the International Tropical Timber Organization, the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, the Pan-American Institute for Geography and History, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies and the International Lead and Zinc Study Group.

The State Department said additional reviews are ongoing.

Amiri reported from the United Nations. Associated Press writer Tammy Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan.

United States' Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz addresses the Security Council Monday, Jan. 5, 2026 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

President Donald Trump listens to a question during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)