JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli government has approved plans to build nearly 5,300 new homes in occupied West Bank settlements, a monitoring group said Thursday, the latest in a campaign to accelerate settlement expansion, aimed at consolidating Israeli control over the territory and preventing the creation of a future Palestinian state.
News of the decision emerged amid diplomatic efforts to end the the nine months war The situation in Gaza appears to be picking up after a pause of several weeks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that he had decided to send negotiators to resume talks. The day before, the militant group Hamas had submitted to the mediators its latest response to a proposed deal backed by the United States.
Fighting has intensified between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, with the militant group saying Thursday it had fired more than 200 rockets and explosive drones in northern Israel to take revenge the murder of a senior commander during an Israeli airstrike the day before.
Months of exchanges have literally set fire to the Israeli-Lebanese border and sparked fears of a potentially even more devastating war in the Middle East. Hezbollah has declared he will stop his attacks if there is a ceasefire between Hamas, another Iranian-backed ally, and Israel.
Israel’s accelerated settlement drive threatens to further inflame tensions in the West Bank, which has seen rising violence since the start of the Gaza war on October 7.
The Israeli anti-settlement organization Peace Now said the government’s Higher Planning Council had approved or advanced plans for 5,295 housing units in dozens of settlements across the West Bank. It also “legalized” three informal outposts as new neighborhoods of existing settlements in the Jordan Valley and near the city of Hebron.
On Wednesday, Peace Now said Israel had approved Largest land seizure in West Bank for more than three decades. COGAT, the Israeli defense agency that oversees the planning council, referred questions to Netanyahu’s office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Netanyahu’s government is dominated by settlers and their supporters. Finance Minister Bazalel Smotrich, a radical nationalist himself a settler, has been put in charge of settlement policy and has said that its rapid expansion is aimed at preventing the creation of a Palestinian state. In recent months, settlers have carried out retaliatory operations against the settlers, resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries. More than 1,000 attacks on Palestinianscausing deaths, damaging property and, in some cases, forcing Palestinians to flee their villages.
The Palestinians claim the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza – areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war – for an independent state.
Approval of new housing projects could also anger Israel’s ally, the United States, which has spoken out against settlements, although it has done little to pressure Israel on the issue.
The Gaza Health Ministry announced Thursday that the number of Palestinians killed by Israel’s campaign in Gaza had surpassed 38,000. The ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count. The war began when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on October 7 in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and kidnapping of 250 other people.
The resumption of ceasefire talks appears to mark a new attempt by American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators to bridge the rift that has repeatedly thwarted a deal in recent months. Hamas wants a deal that guarantees the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and an end to the war. Netanyahu says the war cannot end until Hamas is eliminated.
Israeli negotiators are expected to arrive in Doha, the capital of Qatar, for talks as early as Friday, in the presence of American, Egyptian and Qatari officials.
A senior Biden administration official said the White House viewed the resumption of negotiations as a “step forward” that “moves the process forward,” while cautioning that much work remains to be done.
Mr. Netanyahu spoke with President Joe Biden on Thursday. Mr. Netanyahu’s office said he told Biden that Israel was committed to “ending the war only after it has achieved all of its objectives” — a reference to the dual war aims of rescuing the hostages and destroying Hamas.
Biden made clear to Netanyahu that it was “time to get the deal done,” said the administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the 30-minute call.
United States rallied global support behind a plan for a gradual ceasefire in Gaza that calls for the release of all hostages still held by Hamas in exchange for a lasting truce and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
So far, neither side appears to have fully embraced it.
Last month, Hamas proposed “amendments” to the proposal, some of which the United States said were unworkable. Negotiations broke off. After the United States proposed a new version, Hamas said Wednesday it had sent a new response to Egypt and Qatar. Bassem Naim, a Hamas political official, said the group had “responded with some ideas to bridge the gap” between the two sides, without elaborating.
For its part, Netanyahu has adopted contradictory positions — he said Israel was committed to the proposal presented by Biden in a speech on May 31. But in a television interview last month, he said he was only prepared to make a “partial agreement” and would continue the war “after a break.”
Basically, the US proposal envisages a three-phase process.
The first phase provides for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. After the release of some hostages during the November ceasefire, the militants still hold about 80 hostages and the remains of 40 others.
During the 42 days of the first phase, the parties will negotiate the terms of the second phase.
The negotiations are to result in “lasting calm” and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza, with Hamas releasing all remaining male hostages in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners. The third phase would see the return of the hostages’ remains.
The transition from the first to the second phase seems to be the main sticking point.
Hamas fears that Israel will restart the war after the first phase, perhaps after making unrealistic demands during negotiations. Israeli officials have said they want the negotiations to result in Hamas being ousted from power in Gaza, a provision that is not specified in the proposal. They have also called for the negotiations to be limited in duration in order to maintain pressure on Hamas and prevent it from extending the talks and the initial ceasefire.
The U.S. administration official said Hamas had abandoned its position demanding guarantees of a permanent cease-fire to begin the three-phase deal. Hamas’ response indicates there is a “decent understanding of what would need to happen” to move from the first to the second phase, the official said.
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Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Abby Sewell in Beirut and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the Gaza war on https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
