Lalrp.org: 
The Israel Land Authority revealed the tenders earlier this week for the development of 940 houses within the West Financial institution settlements of Efrat and Beitar Ilit, in addition to 89 houses within the Gilo settlement, which lies over the 1967 line on the southern fringe of the contested capital of Jerusalem. The massive settlement of Efrat sits deep within the West Financial institution, close to the Palestinian metropolis of Bethlehem.
Palestinians search these lands, captured by Israel within the 1967 Mideast conflict, for a future unbiased state alongside Israel — a longstanding worldwide aim.
The anti-settlement Israeli group Peace Now publicized the development bids on Friday.
“That is one more dangerous and pointless building initiative,” the group mentioned, accusing the Israeli authorities of “trampling on the potential of a future political settlement, and on our relationships with the U.S. and pleasant international locations.”
There was no rapid remark from Netanyahu’s workplace.
The brand new affront to the Palestinians got here only a week after Israeli and Palestinian officials met in Egypt’s southern resort metropolis of Sharm el-Sheikh in an effort to calm rising tensions forward of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. After the assembly, Israel repeated a pledge made at the same February summit in Aqaba, Jordan to quickly freeze the approval of latest settlement models within the West Financial institution.
But the federal government granted approval for over 7,000 new homes in Jewish settlements within the West Financial institution final month, together with in 4 unauthorized outposts — regardless of a U.N. Safety Council assertion sharply criticizing Israeli settlement growth and rising opposition from Israel’s allies, together with america.
An Israeli official, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of he was not approved to transient journalists, described the publication of tenders this week as procedural, saying, “The entire agreements settled throughout the latest joint summits in Jordan and Egypt are being revered absolutely.”
Israel’s authorities, probably the most right-wing and religiously conservative in its historical past, has mentioned it goals to entrench Israeli navy rule within the West Financial institution, increase settlement building and erase the variations for Israelis between life within the settlements and inside the nation’s internationally acknowledged borders. Netanyahu’s coalition consists of ultranationalist settler leaders who stay within the West Financial institution.
The worldwide neighborhood, together with the Palestinians, considers settlement building unlawful or illegitimate. Over 700,000 Israelis now stay within the occupied West Financial institution and east Jerusalem.
The settlement building bids come towards a background of heightened tensions with the Palestinians and a nationwide disaster in Israel over a authorities plan to overtake the judicial system, which critics concern will transfer Israel towards autocracy.
For the reason that begin of 2023, at the least 86 Palestinians, each militants and civilians, have been killed in Israeli raids all through the West Financial institution — making it probably the most lethal begin to the yr in over twenty years. At the very least 13 civilians and one police officer have been killed throughout the identical interval in Palestinian assaults towards Israelis.
