Questions and answers on controversial expansion
Some 400,000 Israeli settlers currently live in the occupied West Bank, alongside 2.6 million Palestinians.
Some 400,000 Israeli settlers currently live in the occupied West Bank, alongside 2.6 million Palestinians
Here are some key questions and answers on settlement building:
What are settlements?
Settlements are Jewish villages, towns and even cities built on territory Israel seized during the 1967 Six-Day War.
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A further 200,000 Israelis live in annexed east Jerusalem, along with at least 300,000 Palestinians, who want to make Arab east Jerusalem the capital of their future state.
Israel also seized part of the Golan Heights from Syria and the Gaza Strip from Egypt and established settlements in both. It evacuated the Gaza settlements in 2005.
What is their legal status?
From the 1970s, Israel established a network of settlements throughout the West Bank.
The Oslo autonomy accords of the 1990s divided the territory into Israeli and Palestinian-governed zones meant to lay the ground for a future Palestinian state, but Israel has continued to build and expand settlements there.
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Palestinian violence has also led to calls from some Israelis to build more settlements as punitive measures in response.
The United Nations and most of the international community see all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem -- which Israel annexed in 1980 -- as illegal.
Israel differentiates between those it has approved and those it has not, often called outposts or wildcat settlements.
Who are the settlers?
Many Israeli settlers moved to the West Bank and east Jerusalem in search of affordable housing.
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The government encouraged them to move to cities such as Ariel, Maale Adumim and the ultra-Orthodox settlements of Beitar Ilit and Modiin Ilit.
There are also many religious nationalist hardliners who see living in the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria as fulfilling a divine promise.
Hundreds of them live near the Cave of the Patriarchs in the city of Hebron, a holy site for both Jews and Muslims and a focal point of violence between Israelis and Palestinians
How do Palestinians see settlements?
Palestinians consider Israeli settlements a war crime and a major obstacle to peace.
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The Palestinians want Israel to withdraw from all land it occupied in 1967 and to dismantle all Jewish settlements, although they have accepted the principle of land swaps equal in size and value.
Israel rules out a full return to pre-1967 borders but has expressed willingness to pull out of some parts of the West Bank while annexing its largest settlement blocs which are home to the majority of the settlers in the territory.
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