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Israel to respond to stabbing with settlements

July 27, 2018

After a Palestinian youth stabbed three Israelis in a West Bank settlement, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced 400 more Jewish homes would be built as an answer to the attack.

https://p.dw.com/p/32CO6
Settlement of Maale Adumim
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in settlements on occupied territoriesImage: DW/C. Kern

Israeli authorities are preparing a plan to build another 400 homes in the West Bank, expanding their settlements on occupied territories, hardline Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Friday.

The move would serve as a retaliation for the Thursday attack on the settlers in the Jewish community of Adam, also known as Geva Binyamin, which saw a Palestinian teenager climb over the wall and stab three people, killing one. The 17-year-old was killed by his victims' neighbors.

"The best answer to terror is the accelerated settlement of Judea and Samaria," Lieberman wrote on Twitter, using Israeli terms for parts of West Bank inhabited mostly by Jews.

Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem after the Six-Day War in 1967. It has since built more tha n 200 settlements on the Palestinian-inhabited territory, shrugging of pressure from the international community that considers them illegal.

Israeli settlers in Hebron spark Palestinian outrage

Read more: Amid Israel-Hamas violence, Gazans fearful of full-scale war

Army raids attacker's village

Last week, Israeli lawmakers passed a controversial law which describes building settlements as "a national value" and pledges to "encourage and promote" it.

Palestinians cite settlements as one of the main obstacles for a permanent peace.

On Friday, Israeli army said it was "reinforcing the defense" of Adam and other Jewish settlements.

The army also raided the home of the 17-year-old Palestinian attacker in the village of Kauber, clashing with local residents. The soldiers blocked the entrance to Kauber with heaps of dirt and measured the attacker's house ahead of demolition. Israeli security forces typically demolish assailant houses in what they dub a deterrent measure.

dj/aw (AP, AFP, dpa)