Israel set to approve building permits in West Bank
STORY: Israel looks set to approve thousands of building permits in the occupied West Bank.
The move by the nationalist-religious government is in defiance of pressure from the U.S.,which sees settlement expansion as an obstacle to peace with Palestinians.
Israel's Supreme Planning Council is due to meet this week, and on its agenda published Sunday, was the approval of more than 4,000 housing units, although only 1,332 are up for final approval.
Still - it's likely to further inflame tensions between Israelis and Palestinians..
CCTV footage, captured earlier this month in the village of Burqa, showed Jewish settlers attacking a surveillance camera outside the home of a Palestinian.
The home's owner told Reuters they also destroyed his windows, flowers and a gate.
It's just one example of the settler violence that hit record levels last year and has increased since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office in January.
His coalition has already approved the promotion of more than 7,000 new housing units, most deep in the West Bank.
It also amended a law to clear the way for settlers to return to four settlements that had previously been evacuated.
One such settlement looks over the village of Burqa.
Palestinians there accuse the Israeli government of trying to intimidate them into fleeing their homes.
Some have installed metal bars on windows. Others have formed a night watch.
This man says they will confront the settlers with whatever they have, "stones, their hands, their bodies."
"We refuse to leave," he says.
In the last month, Burqa's residents said armed settlers, accompanied by Israeli forces, shot at them, set trees on fire and vandalized homes.
The military says they operate to prevent violence or damage to property.
Jewish settlers in the West Bank have also faced drive-by shootings and stone throwing from Palestinians, with at least six killed this year.
After Israel's Sunday decision, the Palestinian Authority - which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank - said it would boycott a meeting of the Joint Economic Committee with Israel scheduled for Monday.
Most countries deem the settlements, built on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as illegal.
