On top of the permission for extra houses to be built in Maale Adumim, the government also approved for 240 new dwellings to be built in parts of east Jerusalem, along with new units for Palestinians to be constructed in other parts of the city.
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Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, Israeli authorities say.
Facing ever-growing pressure from the Israeli High Court, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today agreed to allow Palestinians to build some 600 homes in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, setting off a flurry of outraged condemnation from members of the far-right coalition government.
Ashrawi said that the recent report of the International Quartet for Middeast Peace “encouraged Israel to do so because it equals the victim with the executioner and ignored all laws and international resolutions”.
Among the recommendations outlined in the report, the Quartet urged Israel to lift the blockade of Gaza and called for restoring Palestinian Authority control over the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Israel on Monday barred the Hebron governor from entering its territory after he visited the family of a Palestinian who killed a US-Israeli teenage girl in her sleep, officials said.
Israeli forces demolished two Palestinian homes overnight Sunday in the Qalandiya refugee camp – displacing at least six Palestinian refugees – sparking clashes in the densely populated camp that left four Palestinians injured by Israeli fire.
The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reports that sources close to Ahmad have accused COGAT of incitement against him, saying it was a social norm in Palestinian society to make such condolence calls and that they do not constitute support for a terrorist’s actions.
On Thursday, 13-year-old Israeli-American Hallel Yaffa Ariel was fatally stabbed in Kiryat Arba settlement on the outskirts of the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron.
Peace Now, an Israeli organization that tracks expansion of settlements, immediately rebuked Israel’s decision as counterproductive to the peace process and influenced by domestic politics.
Israeli soldiers at a mobile checkpoint on the main exit road from the West Bank town of Hebron, July 3.
But while the Israeli officials may have political reasons for making such a claim, Palestinian analysts point out that there is no legal justification or comparison between the court decision about Beit Safafa and the announcement Sunday of the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements constructed on illegally-seized Palestinian land.
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Netanyahu said the army had also revoked the Israeli work permits of residents of Beni Naim, the home village of Palestinian assailants.
