A weekly report on Israeli settlement activity by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. This week covering: two legal opinions issued by Israeli Attorney General defending the retroactive legalization of outposts via the expropriation of privately owned Palestinian land; Israel fast-tracks a Jerusalem cable car line despite growing opposition and serious consequences for Palestinians in Silwan; another bedouin community in the E-1 settlement area faces eviction; and, settlers fight for their “right of return” to inaccessible settlements.

A joint report by Israeli NGOs Ir Amim and Bimkom explores the restrictions Israel’s government has placed on Palestinian construction in Jerusalem.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked’s push for a fast-paced inquiry into the case of an Israeli soldier’s alleged abuse of a Palestinian was not about justice, but about bringing down Breaking the Silence.

A new exhibit by B’Tselem marks 50 years of occupation with portraits of 50 Palestinians born in the occupied territories, who have never known a day of freedom in their lives.

Fifty years ago, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242. The resolution is used as a framework for implementing the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But since its adoption in 1967, Israel has violated the resolution by entrenching its occupation of the Palestinian territories through illegal settlements.

“If, as Israel claims, its actions in the West Bank are lawful, why is the US administration fighting the Palestinian effort to have the matter heard at the International Criminal Court?” asks Akiva Eldar.

“The Israeli government appears to be setting the stage for approving the E1 settlement, one of the most dangerous settlement initiatives yet, aimed at breaking up the West Bank and expanding the Israeli borders of Jerusalem,” writes Daoud Kuttab.

Israeli forces reportedly demolished two Palestinian homes on Wednesday in occupied East Jerusalem, according to local sources

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit slammed a new law to legalize wildcat West Bank outposts as “unconstitutional” and called for its annulment in a Thursday legal response to a High Court petition.

Late Friday, the Trump administration announced that the PLO cannot operate a Washington office because it tried to get the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israelis for crimes against Palestinians.

The Trump administration on Tuesday rebuffed the Palestinian Authority’s claim that it has frozen communications with the United States over Washington’s recent threat to shutter the Palestine Liberation Office’s DC office.

The Trump administration is reconsidering its position on closing the Palestinian mission in Washington, said Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki on Tuesday morning.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir has denied there are relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem, in an apparent response to Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz making the first public disclosure of such ties.

A draft motion urging the Dutch government to recognize immediately a Palestinian state and a second urging it to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital foundered in the country’s parliament.

The Knesset on Tuesday gave initial approval to a bill that opens up Israeli Boycott, Divestment, and Boycott (BDS) activists to civil lawsuits with damages of up to NIS 100,000 ($28,000), without requiring the plaintiffs to provide proof of damages.

A November 11th Haaretz interview with a psychologist who occasionally visits the Gaza Strip (Gaza Kids Live in Hell: A Psychologist Tells of Rampant Sexual Abuse, Drugs and Despair) portrays Gazan society as a community that has completely lost its moral backbone – to the extent even, the interviewee Mohammed Mansour claims, that there is rampant sexual abuse and drug abuse and that, for all intents and purposes, everyone is mentally ill. Our longtime and extensive experience as mental health professionals and researchers in Gaza is very different.

Palestinian political factions are set to meet on Tuesday in Cairo, Egypt, in the newest round of national reconciliation talks, following the reconciliation agreement signed by feuding factions Hamas and Fatah in October.