Everything you need to know about Israel settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the past week.

The Gaza Strip is on the ‘verge of disaster,’ the UN warns. Intensive care and surgical operating rooms, sewage treatment plants, and desalination plants are at immediate risk — hospitals have already begun to close.

There is a lot that can be done immediately to improve the situation in Gaza that does not involve massive financial investment or ambitious plans that would take years to implement.

The city of Jerusalem and Jerusalem Development Authority are advancing a plan to build a promenade in the Mount of Olives connecting the two Jewish residential compounds in the Palestinian A-Tur neighborhood. A proposal for a visitors’ center on the Mount of Olives is also being advanced.

The Israeli High Court of Justice is to consider a petition filed by human rights NGO Yesh Din, which argues that the Israeli military’s approach to investigating the deaths of Palestinian civilians is severely flawed.

Church representatives have accused Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat of breaching international treaties after the municipality said it planned to collect 650 million shekels ($186 million) in back taxes owed by churches and international bodies with property in the city.

In an effort to calm growing tensions, the Shin Bet security agency is initiating “gentle conversations” with far-right activists who have been demanding a harsher military response to the Palestinian terror attacks that left two West Bank rabbis dead within the span of a month.

“It is hard to spend a week in Israel and not come away feeling that Israelis have the wind at their backs,” writes Thomas Friedman. “But…”

Responding to previous reports, the police say that the IDF will not take any kind of control in east Jerusalem neighborhoods, as part of a reorganization of security forces near the capital.

American Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt on Thursday slammed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for failing to mention Judaism’s connection to Jerusalem in a speech this week.

Palestinians say they will explore going it alone on economy, security, currency; but the move is widely seen as tactic to appease the Palestinian public rather than a real bid for change.

When they meet on February 12, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss a new proposed peace negotiations mechanism meant to sideline the United States, a Palestinian diplomat in Russia told the Russian Interfax news agency on Wednesday.

In the face of an onslaught of nationalist, anti-Arab laws, one lawmaker is proposing a simple alternative: transforming Israel into a state for all its citizens.