Israeli troops have mistakenly killed a Palestinian boy while responding with gunfire to stones being thrown at Israeli vehicles in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army said.
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The prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said the decision by his rightwing cabinet to allocate the extra 70 million shekels was in response to concerns about the security of existing Israeli settlements.
About 500,000 Jewish settlers now live on more than 100 Jewish-only settlements built since Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.
According to legal experts, it also gives Israeli police sweeping new powers to arrest suspects and deny them access to lawyers.
The Israeli government argued the increase was needed due to security concerns. “Recently, Israeli authorities cut off water supplies from the northern cities of the West Bank during the hottest days of the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunrise till sunset”.
Beyond security, it will include spending on tourism infrastructure, sport facilities and cultural events, ministers said.
Palestinian officials called the move a “slap on the face” for the global community.
In a vague statement, they said they discussed possible ways in which the worldwide community could help advance the prospects for peace, including by providing meaningful incentives to the parties to make peace.
Opposition lawmakers criticized Sunday’s decision, arguing that instead of boosting Israel’s struggling periphery, the government was pouring money into an enterprise that undermined Israel’s security and global standing. The incident, in the early hours of the morning, occurred on a main highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem that traverses the West Bank, the military said.
Worldwide law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories and considers all Jewish settlement building on the land to be illegal. The 300 Palestinians are believed to be the first from the blockaded enclave to be granted entry to pray since Israel shut the border after Palestinian gunmen killed four Israelis at a Tel Aviv nightspot on June 8.
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On Monday, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council adopted the resolution in Brussels and reiterated its support for “a just, sustainable and comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and peace and stability in the region”.
