Teen protester death sparks riots

Scores of Palestinians threw rocks, petrol bombs and flares at cars and riot police in east Jerusalem on Sunday. Security forces responded using rubber bullets, with protests lasting for hours.

The rioting broke out after the death of a Palestinian youth was announced. The 16-year-old died on Sunday, a week after sustaining a wound in clashes with Israeli police in Wadi Joz in the east of the city.

According to the deceased boy's family, he was shot in the head by a rubber bullet. The police, however, say the boy was shot in the leg with a foam projectile while running away from security forces during a protest and subsequently fell and hit his head.

A police spokesman said the Israeli Justice Ministry was investigating the case.

Also in east Jerusalem, protesters attacked a gas station, Reuters news agency reported, damaging fuel pumps and attempting to set the station on fire.

Gaza ceasefire holding

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip celebrated the end of a seven-week conflict on August 26 as an open-ended ceasefire deal was implemented, ending "50 days of profound human suffering and devastating physical destruction," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

More than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians - including about 500 children - were killed during Gaza's deadliest violence in a decade. A further 11,000 people were injured. Israel confirmed the death of 64 of its soldiers and six civilians.

According to the UN, more than 17,000 buildings in Gaza were destroyed or severely damaged during the conflict, with about a quarter of the Palestinian territory's population of 1.8 million people internally displaced at the peak of the attacks.

The humanitarian crisis is ongoing, with much of the infrastructure still destroyed. There are reports that Israel is restricting access in the Gaza Strip to construction materials.

Land-grabbing continues

Meanwhile, Israel published tenders last week for 283 new homes in a Jewish settlement, days after announcing plans to expropriate 400 hectares of Palestinian land in the West Bank.

According to documents published on the Israel Land Authority's website, the tenders relate to new housing units in the Elkana settlement, south of Nablus, in the northwest region of the West Bank.

The settlement's expansion was approved in January. Back then, the Haaretz newspaper reported that Israel planned to build some 5,000 settler homes in annexed East Jerusalem and the West Bank, including in Elkana.

According to the Israeli advocacy group Peace Now, the move constitutes the biggest land grab on Palestinian territory since the 1980s, and is likely to threaten a two-state solution to the conflict.

The plans have drawn international criticism. The US State Department urged Israel to "reverse this decision," while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "alarmed" by the plans.

The European Union and the United States oppose Israel's West Bank settlement policy as illegal under international law, and have called it an obstacle to long-term peace.

sb/lw (AFP, Reuters, dpa)