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Israel Plans 1,000 New Settlement Homes as West Bank Raids Intensify
"The Netanyahu government is operating on steroids to establish facts on the ground that will destroy the chance for peace and compromise," said one group.
Feb 17, 2025
Israeli authorities are planning to expand a Jewish-only settlement in the West Bank by nearly 1,000 homes, a Tel Aviv-based peace group said Sunday as Israeli soldiers and settlers escalated attacks on Palestinians in the illegally occupied territory.
Peace Now said Israel's Civil Administration has issued a new tender for the construction of 974 new housing units in Efrat, a Jewish-only colony located about 7.5 miles south of Jerusalem between Bethlehem and Hebron. The planned expansion will increase Efrat's population of approximately 11,800 residents by 40% and geographically isolate Palestinian communities in the southern West Bank.
Emboldened by U.S. President Donald Trump's return to power, far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet have vowed to annex the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967 in violation of international law.
On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that "the goal for 2025 is to demolish more than the Palestinians build in the West Bank," according toAl Jazeera. This, following the largest Israeli seizure of Palestinian land in the West Bank in decades last year.
"The Netanyahu government is operating on steroids to establish facts on the ground that will destroy the chance for peace and compromise," said Peace Now, referring to the longtime Israeli practice of violating international law by colonizing and annexing Palestinian land to establish what one legal scholar has described as "de facto possession with the aim of attaining de jure possession."
Peace Now continued: "It is now clear that military action alone will not bring a solution to the conflict or security to Israel, and that ultimately we will have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians. The Netanyahu government is harming Israeli interests and torpedoing the only solution that can bring us security and peace."
In the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement Monday that "the ongoing de facto annexation of the illegally occupied West Bank through the expansion of racially segregated illegal settlements is just one aspect of the far-right Israeli government's ethnic cleansing of the entirety of historic Palestine and of its relentless efforts to block justice for the Palestinian people."
Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at the Israel-based peace group Ir Amim, toldAl Jazeera that "since the start of 2025, Israeli authorities have demolished 27 structures in East Jerusalem, including 18 residential units, in what appears to be a systematic effort to remove Palestinians from their homes while simultaneously expanding Israeli settlements."
The Israeli settlement population has increased exponentially from around 1,500 colonists in 1970 to roughly 140,000 at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993—under which Israel agreed to halt new settlement activity—to more than 500,000 today. Last July, the International Court of Justice, which is also weighing a genocide case concerning Israel's annihilation of the Gaza Strip, said that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is an illegal form of apartheid that must end "as rapidly as possible."
News of the Efrat expansion came as Israeli soldiers and settlers escalated attacks on Palestinians across the West Bank over the weekend. Occupation forces carried out raids in the towns of al-Issawiya and Salfit, near East Jerusalem, as well as the village of Nabi Saleh near Ramallah. Israeli troops also continued their siege and assault on Jenin and the Nur Shams refugee camp, where two young women, one of them pregnant, were shot dead last week.
Armed Israeli settlers from the Mikne Avraham colony also invaded al-Minya, south of Bethlehem, wounding 16 Palestinians including a pregnant woman who was attacked with clubs and rocks, according toMiddle East Eye. The Israeli newspaper Haaretzreported Saturday that settlers sicced dogs on al-Minya residents, wounding two people.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 876 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
Since launching "Operation Iron Wall" on January 21, Israeli forces have killed at least 53 Palestinians across the West Bank. The Israeli offensive has forced around 40,000 people from their homes in what experts say is the largest displacement in the West Bank since more than 200,000 Palestinians were expelled during the 1967 conquest and occupation.
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Israeli Police Assault Palestinian Christian Worshippers in Jerusalem
Ordinarily, 10,000 worshippers would flock to the church for this festival, but the Israeli police under the new extremist, Jewish supremacist Netanyahu government have refused to allow more than a fraction of them to gather there this year.
Apr 16, 2023
The Arabic press is reporting violent assaults Saturday evening by Israeli police against Palestinian Christian worshippers in Jerusalem attempting to make their way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the "Saturday of Light" commemoration. The police attacks took place at the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in response to Christians objecting to the barriers the police had erected to keep crowds away.
On this day Eastern Orthodox priests descend to the basement where they say their candles are lit from an illumination emanating from the tomb that once held Christ before his resurrection. The lighted candles they bring back up are used to light other candles, and the light is taken by airplane to Eastern Orthodox countries like Greece, Bulgaria, and Ukraine and distributed to churches.
So not only are the Israelis refusing to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian occupation, they are limiting Ukrainian pilgrims from attending the Saturday of Light festivities.
Ordinarily, 10,000 worshippers would flock to the church for this festival, but the Israeli police under the new extremist, Jewish supremacist Netanyahu government have refused to allow more than a fraction of them to gather there this year. Some 1,800 were allowed inside the church and another 1,200 were permitted to gather in the square just outside it.
The Israeli police statement claimed that some of the Christian worshippers attempted to enter the church by force. The police arrested one man, who is charged with attacking them.
\u201cVideo: Israeli occupation forces prevent Christians from accessing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City to celebrate Holy Saturday, and use brutal force against the worshippers, today.\u201d— Quds News Network (@Quds News Network) 1681561585
The foreign ministry of the government of Palestine issued a statement saying that it "condemns in the strongest terms the occupation forces' attack on Christians celebrating the Holy Saturday in the Old City (Jerusalem), and preventing dozens from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," adding that it considered these actions "strong evidence of the oppression practiced by the occupation forces toward Palestinian citizens, and toward the believers who came to worship in Jerusalem, regardless of their nationality."
The assaults on these worshippers, the ministry said, are "a flagrant attack on the political, historical, and legal status quo, and a brazen violation of the obligations of Israel, the occupying power, in Jerusalem."
The "status quo" is a technical term. According to agreements that go back to the Ottoman period and which were accepted by Israel in 1967 when it militarily seized Palestinian East Jerusalem, each religious community has control over its own religious edifices.
The Eastern Orthodox Church explains: "The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has absolute sovereignty, both in the Church of the Resurrection and the Holy Sepulchre, as well as in the rest of the Holy Sites within Palestine. The Church of the Resurrection, the Golgotha, the Holy Sepulchre and Adam's Chapels, the Crown of Thorns, Centurion Longinus' the Monastery of the Klapon, and the Prison of Christ fall within the spiritual, administrative, and pastoral jurisdiction of the Patriarchate, as well as part of the Praetorium, the Tomb of Panaghia in Gethsemane, the Church of 'Little Galilee' on the Mount of Olives, the site where Protomaryr Stephen was stoned to death, and the house of Theotokos."
It is open season on Christians in Jerusalem since PM Benjamin Netanyahu brought extremists such as Jewish Power leader Itamar Ben-Gvir and Religious Zionism head Bezalel Smotrich into the Cabinet and even gave them power over the Palestinians.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who is appointed by the Vatican, told AP this week that the far, far-right government has emboldened Jewish extremists to attack clergymen and commit vandalism against churches at an unprecedented rate. He said that the extremists now feel that they have government protection, adding, "The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new."
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'Heinous Crimes': Global Outcry as Israeli Forces Attack Al-Aqsa Worshipers for Second Night
"They want to create a new reality," said one eyewitness. "They want to empty Al-Aqsa Mosque of Palestinians."
Apr 06, 2023
Israeli police assaulted Palestinians inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Wednesday evening for the second consecutive night during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, just hours after being widely condemned for an earlier attack.
"Dozens of armed Israeli officers entered the courtyards of the mosque while nearly 20,000 Palestinian worshipers were still performing the Ramadan Taraweeh night prayer," Middle East Eye reported. "Israeli forces fired rubber-coated bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades at worshipers just before the prayer ended to disperse them and clear the mosque... They also chased after people, beating them with batons and wounding some."
Israeli forces injured at least six people during their latest storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. On Thursday morning, Israeli officers prevented Palestinians from entering the mosque for the Fajr prayer while allowing Israeli settlers to enter the compound.
"They want to create a new reality," eyewitness Firas al-Dibbs told Middle East Eye. "They want to empty Al-Aqsa Mosque of Palestinians."
"What happened, especially yesterday, was catastrophic," said al-Dibbs, referring to the preceding overnight raid. "The scale of violence was shocking."
During the first attack of the week, which began late Tuesday night and stretched into Wednesday morning, Israeli police officers injured at least a dozen peaceful worshipers and arrested more than 400.
Of the 450 Palestinian men taken into custody, 397 have been released with a one-week ban from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees' Affairs. Forty-seven of the prisoners who live in the occupied West Bank have been transferred to the Ofer military prison and six remain incarcerated in Jerusalem.
Al Jazeera reported Thursday that Israeli police have shut down access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque for Palestinian men under the age of 40. This restriction comes after Israel reportedly reduced the number of people allowed to attend the Taraweeh prayer from 80,000 on Tuesday to 20,000 on Wednesday.
Tuesday night's "barbaric" raid, which eyewitnesses say was far worse in person than what is shown in disturbing video footage, elicited denunciations from around the world, as Common Dreams reported Wednesday.
Leaders from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority described the attack as criminal and called on people to defend the mosque.
Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, Germany, and Canada all issued statements either condemning or expressing concerns about the assault. The United States also expressed concern even as it continues to provide $3.8 billion in annual military support to Israel, an anti-democratic regime that numerous human rights groups have characterized as an apartheid state.
\u201cEvery single one of my colleagues should be calling this horrific violence out.\u201d— Rashida Tlaib (@Rashida Tlaib) 1680796518
Following its emergency meeting in Cairo on Wednesday, the Arab League issued a statement urging the United Nations Security Council to intervene to halt Israeli violence.
"These crimes escalated dangerously in the past days of Ramadan," the League said, "and led to hundreds of injuries and arrests of worshipers, incursions and deliberate desecration of the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque by extremist Israeli officials and settlers under the protection of the occupation forces."
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is Islam's third-holiest site "where unsolicited visits, prayers, and rituals by non-Muslims are forbidden, according to decadeslong international agreements," Middle East Eye explained. "Israeli groups, in coordination with authorities, have long violated the delicate arrangement and facilitated raids of the site and performed prayers and religious rituals."
Malaysia and neighboring Indonesia—the largest Muslim-majority country in the world—on Wednesday joined the Arab League in demanding an international response. The U.N. Security Council, said Malaysia, should "hold the Israeli regime accountable and responsible for the heinous crimes, and for them to release immediately all Palestinian detainees."
U.N. Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland, for his part, said Wednesday that "this holy period and places of worship should be for safe and peaceful religious reflection." The diplomat implored all parties to "act responsibly and refrain from steps that could escalate tensions."
However, just hours after people across the globe expressed outrage and called for restraint, Israeli forces renewed their attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
As Middle East Eye reported: "The raid on Wednesday started slightly earlier than the previous one on Tuesday, apparently in an attempt by Israeli forces to prevent worshipers from locking themselves inside the Qibli prayer hall. [Tuesday] night, hundreds of Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the Qibli hall—the building with the silver dome—to perform the contemplative prayer of Itikaf and avoid attempts by police to remove them. Itikaf is a non-mandatory religious practice that is common during Ramadan, when worshipers stay inside mosques overnight to pray, reflect, and recite the Quran."
Following Tuesday night's intensification of anti-Palestinian brutality, protests erupted in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and Umm al-Fahm, a Palestinian town in Israel. Demonstrations have since spread to other cities, but Israeli police have violently dispersed them and arrested several people.
Rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel early Wednesday morning. In response, the Israeli military launched a series of airstrikes on the besieged enclave. More rockets were fired from Gaza on Thursday after Wednesday night's storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Also in the wake of Wednesday night's attack, several rockets were fired into Israel from southern Lebanon on Thursday. The Israeli military responded to its northern neighbor with artillery fire, raising fears of a broader regional conflagration.
The final two weeks of Ramadan coincide with Passover—a weeklong Jewish holiday that started on Wednesday—prompting concerns about further violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and beyond.
The raids on Tuesday and Wednesday "come ahead of planned mass incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli settlers set to start on Thursday and last a week," according to Middle East Eye. "Israeli forces regularly empty the mosque of Palestinians outside the five Muslim prayers, especially overnight and after dawn prayers to ensure a smooth incursion of Israeli settlers that takes place daily around 7:30 am local time. Temple Movement groups, which facilitate the settler incursions and advocate for the destruction of Al-Aqsa, have called for mass stormings throughout the weeklong Passover holiday."
"They have also called for conducting ritual animal slaughter at the site which could trigger anger from Palestinians and Muslims worldwide," the outlet noted. "Palestinian groups have urged mass presence at the site this week to prevent the planned animal slaughter and mass incursions."
Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in May 2021 preceded a deadly 11-day offensive on the Gaza Strip. Some commentators have argued that Israel is seeking to heighten anti-Arab violence now as a way to blunt internal opposition to the far-right's attempted judicial coup.
"What we see today is a very serious provocation that will definitely lead to an escalation, and maybe this is exactly what the Israeli government wants," Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative told Al Jazeera. "They want to distract attention from their internal division, from the demonstrations that are taking place inside Israel against this government, and they want to drag the whole region into a total explosion."
Speaking with journalists on Wednesday, U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that the body's secretary-general, António Guterres, had been "shocked and appalled by the images" he had seen from inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
"At a time of the calendar which is holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, this should be a time for peace and not violence," said Dujarric. "Places of worship should only be used for peaceful religious observances."
The U.N. Security Council is set to hold a closed-door emergency session on Thursday to discuss recent Israeli assaults on peaceful Palestinian worshipers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
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