Netanyahu vows to expand settlements in response to attacks

Rasa - Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to authorize new settlement units in the occupied West Bank in response to a series of recent attacks against Israeli forces.

News ID: 442093

Date: 15 December 2018 - 10:07

RNA - Netanyahu asked the Israeli attorney general Avichai Mendelblit on Thursday to facilitate the construction of new residential units in the West Bank.

Mendelblit responded by approving the so-called market amendment law, which is expected to legalize the construction of some 2,000 units in Palestinian lands Israel occupied in 1967.

Additionally, the prime minister's office said it would authorize the construction of 82 new units in the settlement of Ofra, as well as two new industrial zones near the settlements of Avnei Hefetz and Betar Ilit.

The decision came after protesters gathered outside the PM’s residence, blasting him for not delivering on his promises of security, hours after two Israeli soldiers were shot dead and two others were injured in the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

“Today we suffered a harsh attack in which two soldiers were killed. We will settle accounts with whoever did this,” Netanyahu said as he was flanked by chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot.

"Our guiding principle is that whoever attacks us and whoever tries to attack us – will pay with his life. Our enemies know this and we will find them. They think they can uproot us from our land. They will not succeed," Netanyahu added.

He also ordered more Palestinian homes – or as Israeli media put it “terrorist homes” – to be razed in the West Bank within the next two days.

Earlier, Israeli military forces put the town of al-Bireh near Ramallah under siege and stepped up arrests of Palestinians in the West Bank.

According to Press TV, Netanyahu also sent a hostile message to the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, warning that he would not hesitate to violate a shaky ceasefire that was agreed upon in November, according to Israeli media.

Hamas did not take responsibility for the Thursday attack despite announcing earlier this week that it was behind another shooting incident that had injured seven Israelis in Ofra.

Netanyahu has been under immense pressure to confront Hamas since late March, when his crackdown on the Palestinian protests at the Gaza border, dubbed the Great March for Return, backfired and prompted retaliatory attacks from the resistance movement.

Tensions between the two sides peaked in November, when Hamas fired hundreds of rockets to the occupied territories following a botched Israeli commando mission.

The Palestinian response was so overwhelming that Tel Aviv had to call for a truce, a decision that forced Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s former minister for military affairs, to resign.

The United Nations Security Council deems Israeli settlements illegal, calling on the regime in Resolution 2334 to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem” al-Quds.

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