JERUSALEM: Israel plans 1,000 new homes for Eli settlement in the occupied West Bank in a potential doubling of its population in response to a Palestinian gun attack nearby that killed four people, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday. The statement did not make clear if the plan included homes previously approved for construction, nor detail the timetable.
The West Bank is among areas where Palestinians want to establish an independent state, and which has seen increasing spasms of violence with US-sponsored peacemaking efforts stalled for almost a decade.
Israel has peppered the West Bank with settlements that most world powers view as illegal. Israel disputes this, deeming the land a biblical birthright and security bulwark. Washington has urged its ally not to proceed with settlement projects in the territory, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
On Tuesday, two Hamas gunmen killed four Israelis outside Eli. The group called the attack retaliation for a deadly Israeli raid elsewhere in the West Bank on Monday.
“Our response to terrorism is to strike at it mightily and build up our land,” the statement from Netanyahu’s office said.
It said Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant “agreed to move ahead immediately” with the new Eli homes. Settlement watchdog group Peace Now said Eli now has around 1,000 homes, meaning Wednesday’s announcement could spell a doubling of its population.
The total settlement population in the West Bank has grown to 465,400, among 2.58 million Palestinians, according to Peace Now.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers rampaged through Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, torching buildings and cars in apparent retaliation for the killing by Hamas of four Israelis near a settlement the day before, residents and officials said.
One Palestinian was shot dead during the rampage, Palestinian health officials said.
In TurmusAyya, a prosperous town near Ramallah, footage showed cars ablaze with thick clouds of black smoke swirling above and Palestinian youths throwing stones.
Overnight, residents of a number of other Palestinian towns also reported settler attacks as senior ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government called for a full-scale military operation across the West Bank.
Yaqoub Oweis, chairman of the village council of Al-Lubban Al-Sharqeya near Ramallah, said Israeli soldiers and police stood by as a large group of settlers burned a petrol station, orchards, a cement factory and dozens of cars. — Reuters
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