Israel Bends Slightly on Settlement Building (239 hits)
JERUSALEM — The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, signaled for the first time on Sunday that he was willing to limit, though not completely halt, construction in the West Bank settlements after a partial building moratorium expires later this month.
The hints of flexibility came as diplomats worked to defuse a potential crisis over settlement building that threatens to derail fledgling Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Also Sunday, three Palestinians, including a man in his 90s and his teenage grandson, were killed in northern Gaza by Israeli mortar fire, according to local residents. An Israeli military spokesman said that Israeli forces had fired at, and hit, a group of people who were seen carrying a rocket-propelled grenade.
Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, who recently resumed direct peace talks with the Israelis after a 20-month hiatus, have warned that a renewal of Israeli construction in the settlements would spell the end of the negotiations. Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, is not a party to the talks.
Mr. Netanyahu faces strong opposition from within his governing coalition to any extension of the moratorium, which is due to end Sept. 26.
In a meeting on Sunday with Tony Blair, the envoy of the so-called quartet of peacemakers — the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia — Mr. Netanyahu said that the Palestinians wanted “zero building in Judea and Samaria,” calling the West Bank by its biblical names, “and that will not happen. Israel cannot continue the freeze.”
