The Israeli Interior Ministry released figures on Tuesday showing that the number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip had increased by 16 percent in the last three years, to 236,381 -- about double the number that existed when Israel signed the Oslo Accords in 1993.
The figures were released on a day of violence in Gaza, when an Israeli helicopter fired missiles at a car carrying senior members of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, according to the Israeli military.
Israel was also planning over the next three years to double the number of Jewish settlers living in the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War, a cabinet minister said yesterday.
A military spokesman declined to comment on any casualties in the night attack in Gaza City, but news agencies reported that one of the men had been wounded and as many as 10 bystanders had been injured.
Separately, Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint outside the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis killed a Palestinian man who was suspected of planting a bomb.
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has vowed to dismantle unauthorized settlements in accordance with the current Washington-backed Middle East peace plan, but he has been slow to fulfill the promise. On Tuesday, Israeli soldiers posted eviction orders at four unauthorized outposts in the West Bank, but only one was inhabited.
Critics say that the moves are cosmetic and that Sharon, a longtime advocate of the settlements, is not serious about stopping the spread of Jewish settlements.
Members of the opposition Labor Party have submitted a no-confidence motion against Sharon's government, saying his administration has encouraged the growth of the settlements by giving settlers tax breaks and other preferential financial treatment.
Leaders of the roughly 3.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip say the presence of the settlers is an obstacle to their goal of creating a contiguous state.
Among the fastest-growing settlements in the last three years were those surrounded by Palestinian areas in Gaza that have borne some of the most persistent and heaviest attacks since the uprising began in September, 2000.
The population of Kfar Darom, a Jewish enclave in the middle of the Gaza Strip, grew by 52 percent, and nearby Netzarim by 24 percent, according to the figures.
In Neve Dekalim, a heavily barricaded settlement just down the road from the Gaza checkpoint where soldiers killed the 22-year-old Palestinian on Tuesday, settlers say the number of families has grown to 520 from 480 in the last three years.
"The way the Israeli government sees it is there will be no additional building outside the authorized municipal parameters of the existing settlements, but inside the settlements one cannot stop life going on," said Zalman Shoval, the foreign affairs adviser to Sharon and a former Israeli ambassador to the US.
Reports by Israel's largest daily and Israel radio meanwhile said the right-wing government agreed on a plan to solidify its hold over the Golan Heights before opening any peace negotiations with Syria.
About 17,000 Jewish settlers now live in the Golan, a plateau with important aquifers and strategic value because it overlooks northeastern Israel, including the Sea of Galilee.
"The government decision is a response to the initiative of Syria, which said it is interested in peace while openly supporting Palestinian terror," Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz told the Yedioth Ahronoth.
Israel Radio said the settlement plan would involve building around 900 homes and other investments worth more than 300 million shekels (US$68 million).
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion