Tag Archives: Israel

In week of Middle East talks, Trump envoy avoids disruption

Jason Greenblatt (L), U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem March 13, 2017. Courtesy Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv/Handout via REUTERS

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy has spent the week shuttling between Jerusalem, Ramallah and the Jordanian capital Amman on his first official visit to the region, pursuing quiet diplomacy and avoiding controversy.

A real estate lawyer who has worked for Trump for 20 years, Jason Greenblatt has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah and other senior officials during a busy round of talks that U.S. diplomats have described as a “listening tour”.

Rather than some of the bold pronouncements Trump himself has made on the region – last month he said he didn’t mind if there was a one-state or two-state solution to the conflict — Greenblatt, 49, has been circumspect, issuing a few tweets but not speaking to the media.

“President Abbas and I discussed how to make progress toward peace, building capacity of Palestinian security forces and stopping incitement,” he wrote on Twitter, preceded by a picture of him shaking hands warmly with the Palestinian leader.

The readout from the Palestinians and King Abdullah after their meetings was positive, if largely sticking to standard diplomatic pronouncements about the importance of peace negotiations and their ability to transform the region.

Social media commentators were quick to point out that Greenblatt, an Orthodox Jew, had shown a notable degree of religious flexibility during his visit that may reflect a desire to be open and diplomatic: he has not worn his kippa, a skull cap worn by religious Jewish men, all week.

In official pictures, Greenblatt, a father of six who studied at a Talmudic high school and Yeshiva University, is usually seen wearing a black kippa, the type favor by devout men. Before landing in Israel, he posted a picture of his prayer shawl and other religious accoutrements.

“ULTIMATE DEAL”?

One of the criticisms Palestinians have made of Trump is that he is too pro-Israel, especially with his promise during the campaign to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and his soft-pedalling on Israeli settlement-building.

The settlements are built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – seized by Israel in a 1967 war and occupied for nearly 50 years – where Palestinians want to establish their state and capital.

Since taking office, Trump has modified his positions to an extent, rowing back on any quick embassy move and calling on Netanyahu during their White House meeting last month to “hold back on settlements for a little bit”.

The main point of discussion during five hours of talks between Greenblatt and Netanyahu on Tuesday was settlements, an Israeli official said, with the two sides seeking to come to an accommodation over how much Israel can build and where.

Netanyahu and Greenblatt will meet for more talks later on Thursday, before the U.S. envoy returns to Washington.

“Our intention is to reach an agreed policy for building in settlements which is agreeable to us, not only to the Americans,” Netanyahu said ahead of the meeting.

“Of course, this will help Israel after a period of many years during which we were not involved in such processes.”

The Obama administration said Israel’s settlement building was jeopardizing peace efforts, and Abbas has said they must stop before negotiations can resume.

U.S. officials indicated that Greenblatt, who is officially Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, would report back directly to the president on his trip, rather than to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

They said it was the first of numerous visits he is expected to make to the region as the Trump administration pursues its goal of reviving negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and striking what Trump calls “the ultimate deal”.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Trump Middle East envoy meets Palestinian leader Abbas

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy held his first talks on Tuesday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, amid Palestinian concerns that the new administration in Washington is more favorably disposed toward Israel.

Jason Greenblatt’s talks with Abbas took place in Ramallah, the Palestinian seat of government, a day after he held a lengthy meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

“President Abbas & I discussed how to make progress toward peace, building capacity of Palestinian security forces & stopping incitement,” Greenblatt tweeted after the meeting.

In a separate statement issued by the U.S. Consulate General, the two men “reaffirmed the commitment of both the Palestinian Authority and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians”.

Abbas stressed that the Palestinian strategic choice was to achieve a two-state solution, the statement added.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014. Since his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump has been ambivalent about a two-state solution, the mainstay of U.S. policy in the region for the past two decades.

“I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like … I can live with either one,” Trump told a Feb. 15 news conference during a visit to Washington by Netanyahu, causing consternation across the Arab world and in many European capitals.

However, Trump last Friday held his first telephone conversation with Abbas since becoming president and invited him to the White House.

Tuesday’s statement said Abbas had told Greenblatt he believed that under Trump’s leadership “a historic peace deal was possible”.

Abbas and Greenblatt also discussed plans to strengthen the Palestinian economy and the importance of ensuring economic opportunities for Palestinians, the statement said.

On Monday, Netanyahu and Greenblatt discussed Israel’s settlement building “with the hope of reaching a formula that will aim to promote peace and security”, the Israeli leader’s office said.

One of the most heated issues between Israel and the Palestinians is Israel’s building of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory the Palestinians want for their own future state along with the Gaza Strip.

Greenblatt, a longtime top lawyer in Trump’s company, also serves as the president’s special negotiator for trade deals, among other responsibilities.

(Reporting by Ori Lewis; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Israel shuts Palestinian map office citing sovereignty breach

Israeli border police officers stand guard outside the building where Israeli security officers closed a Palestinian map office complying with an Israeli police order to close the office, in the Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel ordered the closure of an office in Arab East Jerusalem on Tuesday as it was suspected of being funded by the Palestinian Authority and involved with monitoring the sale of Palestinian property to Jews, police said.

Israel forbids any official activity by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, saying it breaches Israel’s sovereignty over the city, which it has declared its indivisible capital, a move not recognized internationally.

Israel’s internal security minister said the office, which drafts maps, was “monitoring and documenting” Palestinian-owned land in East Jerusalem, scrutinizing changes Israel has made to the terrain and passing on the names of landowners planning to sell.

“Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan ordered the closure of the Palestinian map office which has resumed operations in Beit Hanina in Jerusalem,” a police statement said.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat called the closure a “provocative act” and part of an effort by Israel “to erase any Palestinian presence in the city”.

However, in a statement Erdan said: “The Palestinian map office is part of the PA’s plan to harm our sovereignty in Jerusalem and to threaten Arabs selling real estate to Jews in the city. I will continue to act firmly to prevent any Palestinian government foothold in Jerusalem.”

The office, in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood in the northern part of Jerusalem, is run by geographer Khalil Tafakji. Police said that a 65-year-old Jerusalem resident was arrested and many documents and computers were seized.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, together with the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israel occupied East Jerusalem after capturing it in a 1967 war, a move not recognized internationally.

Since annexing East Jerusalem in 1980, Israel has greatly expanded its presence in that part of the city, building settlements and major pieces of infrastructure. Private Jewish groups have also sought to buy up Palestinian homes in eastern neighborhoods to expand the Jewish presence in the east.

(Reporting by Ammar Awad, Writing by Ori Lewis, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

Iran’s presence in Syrian blocks peace deal, Netanyahu tells Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow, Russia, March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Pavel Golovkin/Pool

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday there could never be peace in Syria as long as there was an Iranian presence there.

“We discussed at length the matter of Iran, its objectives and intentions in Syria, and I clarified that there cannot be a peace deal in Syria when Iran is there and declares its intention to destroy Israel,” Netanyahu said in footage supplied by his office after their meeting.

Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy, has been embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s staunchest backer and has provided militia fighters to help him in the country’s civil war.

“(Iran) is arming itself and its forces against Israel including from Syria territory and is, in fact, gaining a foothold to continue the fight against Israel,” he said in reply to a reporter’s question.

“There cannot be peace when they continue the war and therefore they have to be removed.”

Russia, also Assad’s ally, is seen as holding the balance of power in achieving a deal on Syria’s future. In Geneva last week, the first U.N.-led Syria peace talks in a year ended without a breakthrough.

Israeli leaders have pointed to Tehran’s steadily increasing influence in the region during the six-year-old Syrian conflict, whether via its own Revolutionary Guard forces or Shi’ite Muslim proxies, especially Hezbollah.

Last year, Avi Dichter, the chair of Israel’s foreign affairs and defense committee, said Iran had tried several times in the past to move forces into the Syrian Golan Heights, next to territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Dichter said those moves were repelled, but gave no details.

Netanyahu has said that Israel has carried out dozens of strikes to prevent weapons smuggling to the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah via Syria. Two years ago, Israel and Russia agreed to coordinate military actions over Syria in order to avoid accidentally trading fire.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; editing by Andrew Roche)

Israel’s women combat soldiers on frontline of battle for equality

A female Israeli soldier from the Haraam artillery battalion takes part in a training session in Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defence technique, at a military base in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Nir Elias

By Yuval Ben-David

ISRAELI MILITARY BASE, Golan Heights(Reuters) – Not far from the Syrian border, two Israeli soldiers – a man and a woman – faced off in a training session of Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defense technique.

“I want you to be aggressive, give him the fight of his life,” physical education officer Lotem Stapleton urged the woman, a soldier in the Haraam artillery battalion, the Israeli military’s longest-running mixed-gender combat battalion.

As the world marks International Women’s Day on Wednesday, whose theme this year focuses on “women in the changing world of work”, the Israeli military says it is ahead of the curve in providing combat roles for female soldiers.

At an army base – which under military censorship rules could not be identified – in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Stapleton shouted encouragement at a pack of 13 soldiers who confronted a stream of “enemy combatants” in a training circuit.

“Today, 85 percent of (combat) positions are open to women. We are also talking about opening more and more positions,” Stapleton said.

The Haraam battalion began accepting women in 2000. Overall, female soldiers now make up 7 percent of the fighting ranks in the Israeli military, where men and women are conscripted at the age of 18.

Men serve for three years and women for two. Israel’s Arab citizens and ultra-Orthodox Jewish community are largely exempted from military service.

“I think that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is very advanced by giving women equal opportunities,” Lieutenant-Colonel Oshrat Bachar, an adviser to the office of the chief of staff on gender issues, told Reuters at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.

“I believe that we are much more advanced than other armies in the world because (service) is mandatory and of course because we believe in equal rights,” she said.

Rachel Fenta, a female combatant in the Haraam battalion, said she spent a year sitting at a desk before she became determined to join a fighting unit.

“I wanted to test my limits,” she said.

Matan Paull, a commanding officer in the battalion, said female combatants were generally more creative and mentally flexible than their male counterparts. But he said the women tended to get injured more easily.

Mai Ofir, another female member of the unit, would agree.

“Our bodies aren’t built the same,” she said. “But just as a guy can shoot a rocket, so can a woman.”

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Alison Williams)

Call from Trump interrupts Israeli police questioning Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem March 5, 2017. REUTERS/Abir Sultan/Pool

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A phone call from U.S. President Donald Trump interrupted a police inquiry into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on Monday being questioned for a fourth time over suspicions of corruption.

Not long after sitting down with police investigators at his residence in Jerusalem, one aide said, Netanyahu briefly excused himself to speak with Trump.

“The two leaders spoke at length about the dangers posed by the nuclear deal with Iran… and about the need to work together to counter those dangers,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement issued just before details of the police probe led prime time news.

Netanyahu, 67, is a suspect in two cases, one involving the receipt of gifts from businessmen and the other related to conversations he held with an Israeli newspaper publisher about limiting competition in the news sector in exchange for more positive coverage.

No charges have been brought against Netanyahu, who has been in power since 2009 and has denied wrongdoing.

A police spokeswoman said a statement would be released after the session. “We are in the final stages,” Police chief Roni Elsheich told reporters earlier about the investigation.

Once it is complete, police will decide whether to drop the case or recommend the attorney general bring charges.

As speculation bubbles, politicians from across the spectrum have begun maneuvering, believing early elections will probably have to be called if Netanyahu is indicted.

Such a move would most likely lead to his resignation – in 1993 the Supreme Court set a precedent for ministers to step down if they are charged with corruption.

It is possible someone from his Likud party could replace Netanyahu without a new vote, but many analysts think it unlikely, predicting an election would have to be called for September or November, depending on developments.

The opposition Labour party will hold primaries in July, former defense minister Moshe Yaalon has launched his own party and Avi Dichter, the former head of the Shin Bet intelligence agency and a senior member of Likud, said on Saturday he would consider running for the party leadership.

“I am here to lead and will undoubtedly run for Likud leadership and the premiership,” Dichter was quoted as saying, comments his spokesman said were not a challenge to Netanyahu and referred to future primaries.

SHAKE-UP?

To analysts, the rumblings are clear and foreshadow change after 20 years of Netanyahu dominating the landscape.

“Active politicians and those on the benches waiting to enter, all of them have concluded that early elections are coming because of the investigation,” Menachem Klein, a politics professor at Bar-Ilan University, told Reuters.

“They are starting to prepare themselves.”

Opinion polls show Yair Lapid, the head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, as the strongest candidate for prime minister if Netanyahu goes, but there are a host of others nipping at his heels. Other polls show Netanyahu remains the most popular politician.

In recent weeks, Netanyahu has visited Britain, the United States and Australia. Trips are planned to Russia, China and India. Some critics suggest the travel is a way of delaying questioning. Others say it is about appearing statesman-like.

“His junkets to far-flung places and visits with the leaders of world powers are intended to persuade Israelis that he’s the be-all and end-all,” columnist Yossi Verter wrote in Haaretz. “The deeper the investigations, the more he’ll be in the air.”

Netanyahu’s opponents name a number of party rivals bidding to replace him, including Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Culture Minister Miri Regev and Transport Minister Yisrael Katz. Naftali Bennett of the far-right Jewish Home is seen as someone who could switch to Likud to try to lead.

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and John Stonestreet)

U.S. seeks end to U.N. rights council’s ‘obsession’ with Israel

Israeli policemen remove a pro-settlement activist during an operation by Israeli forces to evict residents from several homes in the Israeli settlement of Ofra, in the occupied West Bank, February 28, 2017. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is reviewing its participation in the U.N. Human Rights Council, seeking reform of its agenda and an end to its “obsession with Israel”, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.

Washington has long argued that the Geneva forum unfairly focuses on Israel’s alleged violations of human rights, including war crimes against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The United States “remains deeply troubled by the Council’s consistent unfair and unbalanced focus on one democratic country, Israel”, Erin Barclay, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Barclay said that no other nation had a whole agenda item devoted to it and that “this obsession with Israel” threatened the council’s credibility.

Barclay questioned whether focusing on Israel was a sensible priority, adding that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government was bombing hospitals while North Korea and Iran deny millions of their people of freedoms of religion, peaceful assembly and expression.

“In order for this Council to have any credibility, let alone success, it must move away from its unbalanced and unproductive positions,” Barclay said.

“As we consider our future engagements, my government will be considering the Council’s actions with an eye toward reform to more fully achieve the Council’s mission to protect and promote human rights.”

The United States is currently an elected member of the 47-state Geneva forum where its three-year term ends in 2019.

There was no immediate reaction from the U.N. human rights office, but on Tuesday Council spokesman Rolando Gomez told a briefing: “The US been a very active and constructive partner in the Council for many years, spearheading a number of important initiatives, such as DPRK (North Korea), Iran, Syria, LGBT rights … and many issues that are certainly on the agenda today.”

He said that any country that wished to revoke its membership of the council would have to go through the General Assembly in New York.

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Richard Lough)

Israel removes settlers from homes on private Palestinian land

A pro-settlement activist climbs onto a rooftop of a house to resist evacuation of some houses in the settlement of Ofra in the occupied West Bank, during an operation by Israeli forces to evict the houses. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

By Eli Berzlon

OFRA, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli police began removing settlers and hundreds of supporters on Tuesday from nine houses built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

Police carried some of the settlers and protesters out of the red-roofed structures in the settlement of Ofra, while others walked out, escorted by officers.

Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the demolition of nine buildings in the settlement of more than 3,000 people after finding that those homes were constructed on land where Palestinians proved ownership.

Such judicial rulings upholding Palestinian property rights have riled Israel’s right-wing, as it promotes plans to expand construction in settlements built on occupied territory Palestinians seek for a state.

In one home in Ofra, police and protesters, mainly youths, linked arms and swayed in prayer before the youngsters, offering passive resistance, were taken outside.

“We feel that this is not right at all, what’s being done here: the destruction of these homes in the center of a Jewish town, in the center of a populated town that was established legally 42 years ago,” said Eliana Passentin, a spokeswoman for the local settler regional council.

There was little initial sign of the kind of violence that accompanied a larger-scale evacuation on Feb. 2 of Amona, a West Bank settlement-outpost built without Israeli government permission in 1995.

More than 100 youngsters had protested against the removal of Amona’s 300 settlers. Some 60 officers and at least four demonstrators were hurt in scuffles there that included bleach being thrown at police.

Most countries consider all Israeli settlements on land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war to be illegal. Israel disagrees, citing biblical, historical and political links to the land as well as security interests.

Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, which Israeli forces left in 2005, with East Jerusalem as its capital. They say settlement construction could deny them a viable and contiguous country.

Some 550,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem, areas that are home to more than 2.6 million Palestinians.

Three weeks ago, Israel’s parliament retroactively legalized about 4,000 settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land. The new law did not apply to Amona or the nine dwellings in Ofra because of standing court rulings.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January, Israel has announced plans to build 6,000 more settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

But at a White House news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Feb. 15, Trump startled the Israeli leader by saying he would like to see him “hold back on settlements for a bit”. Netanyahu later said he hoped to “reach an understanding” with Trump on settlements.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Israeli aircraft attack Hamas targets after rocket fired from Gaza

Smoke rises following what police said was an Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip February 27, 2017.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli aircraft carried out a series of strikes in Gaza on Monday, wounding at least four people, witnesses said, after a rocket fired from the Palestinian territory hit an empty area in southern Israel.

The Israeli military said its planes attacked five positions belonging to Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, in response to the rocket strike.

Witnesses said the four wounded were bystanders.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket attack. Israel said that it holds Hamas accountable for what happens in the territory.

The group has observed a de-facto ceasefire with Israel since a 2014 war but small armed cells of jihadist Salafis have continued to occasionally launch rockets at Israel. When those attacks occur, Hamas usually orders its fighters to vacate potential targets for Israeli retaliation.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel had “no desire or intention to initiate any military move in the Gaza Strip” but that it would not tolerate even a “drizzle” of rocket fire.

“We will not get into a ping-pong situation of fire and counter-fire. I suggest Hamas take responsibility, impose order and calm down,” Lieberman said in public remarks to legislators of his Yisrael Beitenu party in Jerusalem.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Israel would be responsible for any escalation if it continued to target “resistance positions”.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Israel bans Human Right Watch worker, accuses group of peddling pro-Palestinian line

FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during an event marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marked on January 27, at the Yad Vashem synagogue in Jerusalem January 26, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel has denied a work permit to a Human Rights Watch researcher, accusing the group of serving as Palestinian propagandists in a move the U.S.-based organisation called an “ominous turn”.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said the decision had been taken because of HRW’s “extreme, hostile anti-Israel agenda which was working at the service of Palestinian propaganda…in a totally biased manner.”

The news emerged as Israel faced criticism from the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva over the 18-month jail sentence handed to an Israeli soldier who shot an incapacitated Palestinian assailant in the head. The council called it an “apparent extrajudicial execution of an unarmed man”.

U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the sentence given to soldier Elor Azaria was “excessively lenient” and part of a “chronic culture of impunity” for Israeli abuse of Palestinians.

Many Israelis, particularly from the right-wing, opposed the prosecution of Azaria for killing Abdel Fattah al-Sharif Elor, who had attacked one of his comrades with a knife.

HRW said it was “disappointing that the Israeli government seems unable or unwilling to distinguish between justified criticisms of its actions and hostile political propaganda”.

The organisation had been granted unimpeded access to Israel and the West Bank for three decades. Israel had now joined Cuba, Egypt, North Korea, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela as countries that have impeded its access, HRW said.

In its letter, the Israeli immigration office said the Foreign Ministry had advised it that HRW’s work amounted to “Palestinian propaganda under the false banner of human rights”.

“Because of this, we recommend denying the permit,” it said.

The U.S. State Department said it strongly disagreed with Israel’s characterisation of HRW, which it considers a credible human rights organisation.

“Even though we do not agree with all of their assertions or conclusions, given the seriousness of their efforts, we support the importance of the work they do. We reference HRW reports in our own reporting,” acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

Israeli spokesman Nahshon said the decision was a one-off and did not represent a change in policy towards NGOs. The HRW representative could enter Israel on a tourist visa and the work visa application may be reconsidered if an appeal is lodged.

Last year, a new law limited foreign funding for NGOs which Israel considers critical of its policies. The law was heavily criticised by the European Union.

Many of the Israeli NGOs that receive support from foreign governments oppose the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government towards the Palestinians.

Israel has come under renewed international criticism for its expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, seen as an obstacle to resolving the Israeli-Palestiniam conflict.

The prospects of peace talks, already at a stalemate, were thrown into additional uncertainty this month when new U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to abandoned a long-standing commitment to a two-state solution.

Israel also dismissed the U.N. council’s criticism of the Palestinian’s killing.

“The (council) has proven once more that according to it’s twisted scale, one bullet fired by Azaria at a terrorist is more severe than the millions of bullets that murder innocent people in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Yemen. This is a council of hatred of Israel, not a human rights council,” Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on social media.

Israel says the council is biased against it due to its frequent resolutions condemning Israeli settlements and practices in the Gaza Strip.

At least 235 Palestinians have been killed in violence in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza since October 2015. Israel says that at least 158 of those killed were assailants and others died during clashes and protests. Two American tourists and 37 Israelis have also been killed.

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Washington and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)