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Israel OKs planning for Jewish homes in flashpoint city of Hebron

The village is located in Area C of the West Bank, under complete Israeli civil and military control.

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There is little trust between Palestinians and Israelis. Israel says most of the dead were attackers, though the Palestinians have challenged numerous Israeli accounts. “At the same time, it is important to end the Palestinian-Palestinian rift. and to have national reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas so that the climate be ready for real efforts to establish a state”, he said.

The Israeli government has approved the planning of new housing for Jews in the predominantly Arab West Bank city of Hebron.

Early on Tuesday, a large number of illegal settlers, accompanied by Israeli military soldiers, stormed Joseph’s Tomb on the outskirts of Nablus, desecrating the site venerated by Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Hagit Ofran of the anti-settlement group Peace Now says the land was requisitioned from the Palestinian-run municipality for military use and will be converted to residential construction.

Overall, support for a two-state solution among Israelis appears to be higher than it was a year ago, in June of 2015, when a similar poll found that only 51 percent of both Israelis and Palestinians were in favor of an independent Palestinian state. According to the statement, six other detainees, including journalist Omar Nazzal, are also on hunger strike in protest of their administrative detention and prolonged solitary confinement, and a further 100 Palestinians in prisons across Israel have undertaken hunger strikes in solidarity.

Egypt’s President, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, has said that Vladimir Putin is willing to host peace talks in Moscow between Israel and Palestine.

Tamar Hermann, an Israeli political scientist who conducted the survey with Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, said that under the current circumstances, the results were “not amazingly encouraging”, but also “not discouraging”.

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“It showed there is still some basis for optimism with the right leadership”, she said. The poll surveyed some 1,200 people on each side and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi