"Israel" to extend closure of Gaza, West Bank crossings till Monday

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On Saturday evening, Israeli media reported that after the security assessment of the current situation came to a conclusion, it was decided that the full closure of West Bank and Gaza crossings will last till Monday.

The Israeli minister of defense, Benny Gantz, announced in mid-April that there will be no extension of full closure during the Jewish Passover period.

On April 23, the Israeli occupation authorities announced that the checkpoint of Beit Hanoun will be closed for Palestinian workers and merchants until further notice. 

The European Union and the United Nations, in two separate statements last Thursday, rejected an Israeli judicial decision that permitted the eviction of over a thousand Palestinians from the Masafer Yatta area in the southern occupied West Bank. 

"The Israeli army has been trying to expel Palestinians from Masafer Yatta for at least 40 years, after classifying 7,400 acres of privately owned Palestinian agricultural land as "Firing Zone 918," the EU said in its statement.

Read more: Forced evacuation is war crime: Palestinian activist in Masafer Yatta

 

The UN coordinator, Lynn Hastings, commented on the Israeli decision, saying that it “The decision affects over one thousand Palestinians including 500 children in the occupied West Bank and allows for the eviction of the residents.

“As all domestic legal remedies have been exhausted, the community is now unprotected and at risk of imminent displacement.”

By the end of last April, Israeli media said that "there is a fear in the security and military establishment of a continuation of escalation with the Gaza Strip." 

'Israel' to approve 4,000 illegal settlement units in West Bank

The Israeli occupation is set to approve next week the planning and building of some 4,000 settlement units in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli ministry of security announced Friday.

"Tel Aviv's" announcement comes in light of preparations for a trip by US President Joe Biden to the occupied land set to take place in late June amid calls on his administration to curb the Israeli expansionism and treading onto more Palestinian land.

The Israeli occupation is taking this specific aggressive step, which comes as part of a series of aggressive acts, due to an ultimatum by a Yamina lawmaker, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's party, who threatened to leave the fragile coalition if the expansion was not approved.

A planning committee of the occupation, charged with approving new buildings in the settlements, will be convening next week, the ministry added.

The committee will likely give permits for the building of 2,500 new settlement units in the occupied territories and move forward with the initial planning of another 1,500.

The Israeli occupation's interior minister, Ayelet Shaked, who is notorious for her support of settlements, confirmed on Twitter that the committee would convene and went on to boldly say that construction in the occupied West Bank was "a basic, required, and obvious thing."