non-lethal security assistance for the PA in the
West Bank. The
And though in the past two years Israel retroactively granted
West Bank residency to more than 4,000 Gazans and their offspring who had already been living in the
West Bank for years, cases of Gazans being permitted to move to the
West Bank are extremely rare.
The PA, which exercises limited self-rule in the
West Bank, receives most of its aid from the US, the European Union and Arab nations.
The destruction, in Qusra village in the northern
West Bank, followed a weekend during which 200 olive trees were uprooted and burned in groves around the villages of Huwwara and Einabus, 10 kilometers further north.
Most of the land belongs to the Palestinian villages of Beit Iksa and neighboring Beit Surik, whose residents have already been cut off from some of their lands by the construction of Israel's
West Bank separation barrier.
The colonel said, "Hamas is investing major efforts so as not to give up the conflict zone here, as the rehabilitation of Hamas militants is an important event." He added that despite all the efforts of the Israeli army and the Palestinian Authority (PA), "there is the possibility that Hamas may pull off a major operation in the
West Bank or even inside Israel in the first half of next year."
The move has been condemned in the Arab world at a time when peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel are locked in a dispute over Israeli settlements in the
West Bank.
The orders, which go into effect on Tuesday, were posted on an army website and allow for the deportation, in some cases in less than 72 hours, of an "infiltrator" -- defined as someone who does not hold an Israeli permit to reside in the
West Bank.
The warning came a day after the International Monetary Fund said the
West Bank economy grew 8.5 percent in 2009 following Palestinian reforms, the easing of some restrictions, and nearly two billion dollars of foreign aid.
Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, said their operatives had killed an Israeli settler in the
West Bank. "We conducted the attack and then managed to escape.
Utah-based America
West Bank has been closed by regulators.
In recent months, Abbas has been trying to expand control over the
West Bank, deploying forces first in the cities of Nablus and Jenin.
The
West Bank and Gaza, geographically separated by a 40km-wide swathe of the Negev desert, are part of historical Palestine and were to have been joined at a point southwest of Jerusalem under the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
Embassy in Tel Aviv took an exhausting afternoon trek out to the fledgling desert community of Kalyah, in the
West Bank territory Israel had taken from Jordan in the Six Day War just two years earlier.
Crawford, Texas--Prime Minister Sharon's visit to President George Bush in April, 2005 had the desired result: another affirmation that Israeli settlements on the
West Bank will never be handed over to the Palestinians, thereby ensuring that an independent Palestinian state is illusory.
