Israel OKs more settlements in West Bank as strikes kill 13

Israel announced on Thursday that it will establish 22 Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the legalisation of outposts that have already been built without any government authorisation.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, where Palestinians have become increasingly desperate for food after nearly three months of Israeli border closures, killed at least 13 people overnight, local health officials said.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. Most of the international community views settlements as illegal and an obstacle to resolving the decades-old conflict. 

In 2005, Israel withdrew its settlements from the Gaza Strip, but leading figures in the current government have called for them to be re-established and for much of the Palestinian population of the territory to be resettled elsewhere through what they describe as voluntary emigration.

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