The Israeli government on Sunday approved about $20 million in additional financing for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, underlining its strengthened right-wing orientation and raising the ire of political opponents and the Palestinians.

A portion of the government’s new multimillion-shekel financial aid package for settlements in the West Bank will be used to fund grants that will cover 20 percent of costs to build new hotels beyond the Green Line, the Tourism Ministry said Sunday.

The number of housing- starts in West Bank settlements for the first quarter of 2016 dropped by 53 percent compared to the same period last year, according to a new report on Israeli construction by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog held secret talks with PA President Mahmoud Abbas during the 2014-2015 election cycle, and agreed to cede the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem to the Palestinians as part of a future peace deal, according to a report published on Thursday.

“Today, Palestinians have access to less water than they were granted by the already-inequitable Oslo agreements: 13 percent, with Israel absorbing the remaining 87,” writes Camilla Corradin.

The European Union’s foreign ministers are to meet Monday to vote in support of the French peace initiative, a proclamation expected to bolster Paris’s efforts to kick start Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

“A new initiative seeks to find a new, creative way to solve the conflict. The only problem? It forgets about equality,” writes Yuval Eylon.

Democrats are heading into their convention next month with deep divisions over U.S. policy toward Israel.

Ya’alon is not merely casting himself as an outsider of Israeli politics. Rather, he is joining a litany of current and former security officials who have spoken out in favor of the Iran nuclear deal.

“Don’t fall for the chutzpah of the former defense minister, whose calls for the establishment of a ‘model society’ in Israel completely ignore the evils of occupation,” writes Gideon Levy.

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) distanced himself from spokesman Ofer Newman on Sunday, after the latter wrote a Facebook post accusing settlers of “destroying our future” and “trampling Jewish morals.”

Hamas on Saturday vowed a tough reaction to reported plans by Israel to build an underground cement barrier along the Gaza border.