West Bank

Cutting a wide swath through the stone homes and terraced olive groves of an Arab neighborhood in southern Jerusalem, a new Israeli road-building project is stirring growing discontent. Graffiti covers metal barriers around the construction site. "Racism," says one. "People before roads. " A black flag of protest flies from one of several houses that are yards away from the planned high-speed route. The road under construction is an extension of a freeway across Jerusalem, linking it to...

President Obama said Thursday that he does not believe a special counsel needs to be appointed to investigate the Internal Revenue Service's practice of targeting conservative groups , saying congressional hearings and a federal criminal investigation should be enough to determine what happened. "My main concern is fixing the problem," Obama said during a news conference with visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Obama also called on Congress to fully fund his budget proposal to increase security at U.S....

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian stabbed a Jewish settler to death in the West Bank on Tuesday — the first fatal attack on an Israeli there in more than a year — and the killing triggered retaliatory violence in both the West Bank and Jerusalem, a police spokesman said. In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike killed an Islamist militant who allegedly was involved in the recent firing of rockets from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula toward the southern Israeli city of Eilat. The airstrike was the first...

JERUSALEM — An Israeli watchdog group on Thursday accused the government of taking steps to legalize four unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank, days before the U.S. secretary of state is set to arrive on a new peace mission. The government announced its move this week in a filing to the Supreme Court, threatening to cast a shadow over Secretary John Kerry's visit. Kerry has been shuttling between Israel and the Palestinians in recent months in hopes of restarting peace...

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinians gathered here Wednesday to commemorate the day they call al-Naqba, or the catastrophe, when the state of Israel was born in 1948. They heard their leaders repeat an old promise that someday, somehow, the scattered people would return. They posed for pictures, too, to prove that the Palestinians are still here, that they will not be forgotten. This was the 65th anniversary of al-Naqba , and the day unfolded according to the script. In Hebron, Nablus and Jenin, they sang folk...

JERUSALEM — Arsonists believed to be Jewish settlers set fire to a mosque in the West Bank on Tuesday, the latest of a series of such attacks in recent years. An Israeli police spokesman said a tire was set ablaze inside a mosque in the village of Mughayir, near Ramallah, in an attempt to burn the building. Worshipers who arrived for morning prayers discovered scorched prayer carpets and Hebrew graffiti scrawled on a wall. The graffiti said, "price tag," a reference to a practice by militant settlers who attack Palestinians and...

JERUSALEM -- The first year in a decade without a suicide bombing, as well as an expanded Palestinian security force, resulted in a decline in the number of Israeli and Palestinian casualties in the occupied West Bank in 2009 -- a contrast to the hundreds of Palestinian lives claimed by last winter's war in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Data from Israel's Shin Bet security agency and the United Nations showed a sharp drop in casualties in the West Bank, policed by a mix of Israeli security and intelligence agencies, as...

NABLUS, West Bank -- When Faris Abu Hasan was deciding where to send his two young daughters to school, one factor stood out above all others: test scores. So Abu Hasan opted against the beleaguered local government school, and chose instead the Islamic Basic School for Girls, where the classes were small and the teachers offered individual attention in math, science, history and English. "I wanted them to go to the best school in Nablus. And this is the best school in Nablus," said Abu Hasan, a lawyer.

JERUSALEM — Israel temporarily banished a dozen suspected Jewish extremists from the West Bank on Thursday as part of a crackdown ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a series of attacks on Palestinians and the military. An army statement said that the top military commander in the West Bank had signed "administrative removal orders" for 12 Jewish activists for periods ranging from three to nine months. The statement added that the group had been involved in "leading, directing and carrying out...

MODIIN ILLIT, West Bank, June 29 -- Chaim Hanfling knows a lot about this settlement's population boom. Six of his 11 siblings have moved here from Jerusalem in recent years to take advantage of the lower land prices, and at age 29, he has added four children of his own. Located just over the Green Line that marks the territory occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the booming ultra-Orthodox community, home to more than 41,000 people, shows why...

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinians gathered here Wednesday to commemorate the day they call al-Naqba, or the catastrophe, when the state of Israel was born in 1948. They heard their leaders repeat an old promise that someday, somehow, the scattered people would return. They posed for pictures, too, to prove that the Palestinians are still here, that they will not be forgotten. This was the 65th anniversary of al-Naqba , and the day unfolded according to the script. In Hebron, Nablus and Jenin, they sang folk...

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Tens of thousands of Palestinians marked the 65th anniversary of their mass displacement during the war over Israel's 1948 creation, marching in the streets and in some parts of the West Bank clashing with Israeli security forces. Every May 15, Palestinians hold rallies to commemorate the "nakba," or "catastrophe" — the term they use to describe the displacement, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the fighting.

CAIRO — A leading Palestinian official says rival groups Fatah and Hamas have agreed to form a national unity government in three months. Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed said both sides agreed on a timetable that begins with creating laws to govern elections. Al-Ahmed spoke in Cairo after he met with a Hamas delegation led by Moussa Abu Marzouk. Tuesday's meeting was brokered by Egyptian intelligence officials. The Hamas militant group controls the Gaza Strip, while the...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — In a blow to pro-Palestinian activists, Dutch authorities said Tuesday they will not prosecute a company on war crimes charges for renting out equipment to construct Israel's West Bank separation barrier. Dutch human rights lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld, who filed in 2010 on behalf of the Palestinian group al-Haq, said she was disappointed by the decision. Still, she said the three-year investigation should serve as a warning to companies involved...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The Palestinians haven't elected a president since 2005, but now they are finally getting a chance to do so — virtually — thanks to a hit reality TV show. "The President" is broadcast weekly on Maan TV, a popular independent Palestinian TV station. It offers contestants a chance to address the Palestinian people on what they would do on a variety of subjects if elected president. They are grilled by a panel of politicians, professors and...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A prominent Islamic scholar making a landmark visit to the Gaza Strip declared Thursday that Israel has no right to exist and voiced his support for rocket fire on Israel, giving a boost of legitimacy to the militant Islamist Hamas rulers of the Palestinian territory. Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the latest of a few high profile figures visit Gaza, boosting the Hamas effort to break its international isolation. The U.S., EU and Israel brand Hamas a terror group,...

JERUSALEM — At a museum just off the desert road from Jerusalem to Jericho in the West Bank, the artifacts of a contested heritage are on display. Colorful mosaic floors from Byzantine-era churches and synagogues, inscriptions, Roman capitals and stone burial boxes — all dug up by Israeli archaeologists in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — are shown at the site, developed by Israel's West Bank military administration with the Israeli antiquities authority. An Israeli flag flies over the museum and adjacent ruins of ancient...

JERUSALEM -- The American editor of a Palestinian news agency was removed from Israel on Wednesday after being questioned by authorities about his "anti-Israeli" views. The case highlights what some nonprofit organizations say is a tightened Israeli policy toward foreign nationals who live or work in the occupied West Bank. It comes amid an intensifying feud over foreign government funding for organizations seen to promote Palestinian interests even as Israeli politicians and nongovernmental organizations try...

JERUSALEM — Israel has given preliminary approval to build nearly 300 housing units in a West Bank settlement, a spokesman said Thursday, bringing a Palestinian rebuke and possibly complicating U.S. efforts to relaunch Mideast peace talks. The approval came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Israel's chief negotiator in Rome. The negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni played down the new housing approval. Maj. Guy Inbar, a military spokesman, said 296 homes in the...

Under the headline " Jewish settler is killed in West Bank ," a May 1 World article included reports of the following incidents: "A Palestinian stabbed a Jewish settler to death in the West Bank on Tuesday. " And, "In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike killed an Islamist militant. " And "Settlers set fire to olive groves in the villages of Asira al-Qibliya, near Nablus, where a mosque was damaged in an attempt to set it on fire, Palestinians reported. Seven girls on a school trip were hurt when two...