Israeli minister to advance settlement construction plan in West Bank

Far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday said that he will advance plans for the construction of new settlements in the West Bank following an attack near Jerusalem earlier in the day, the Times of Israel newspaper reported.

The committee responsible for authorizing the construction of settler homes will meet in the coming days for this purpose, the Times reported.

The decision to advance plans for more than 3,000 new housing units was made during a meeting Finance Minister Smotrich held with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, the paper said.

Smotrich said the move was in response to a shooting on a motorway near Jerusalem on Thursday which resulted in the death of one Israeli and injuries to several others.

Police said three attackers were shot dead at the scene of the attack on a motorway near Jerusalem. According to the Israeli domestic intelligence service Shin Bet the perpetrators were three Palestinians from Bethlehem in the West Bank.

"May every terrorist planning to harm us know that lifting a finger against Israeli citizens will be met with a death blow and destruction in addition to the deepening of our eternal grip on the entire Land of Israel," the Times quoted Smotrich as saying.

The finance minister called the decision "an appropriate Zionist response," the paper said.

Since the beginning of the war between Israel and the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, the security situation in the West Bank has deteriorated significantly.

According to the Ministry of Health in Ramallah, 384 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October 7, either in Israeli military operations, clashes with Israeli security forces, or their own attacks.

There has also been an increase in settler violence against Palestinians.

Israel took control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967, after the Six-Day War. Today, around 700,000 Israeli settlers live there as well as 3 million Palestinians. The Palestinians claim the territories for an independent state with the Arab-dominated eastern part of Jerusalem as its capital.

Countries including Israel's ally the United States have imposed sanctions against Jewish settlers accused of violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

German Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called on Israel to better protect Palestinians in the West Bank from attacks by Israeli settlers.