Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has been reaching out to leading Capitol Hill Democrats to try to ease criticism over his coming address to Congress, but has made little progress.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s scheduled speech to the U.S. Congress in March could damage the Obama administration’s attempts to broker a deal with Iran on nuclear weapons development, the senior U.S. House of Representatives Democrat said on Wednesday.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of an agreement with Iran will result in Israel losing the support of its Western allies and in Iran being legitimized as a nuclear threshold state by its Arab neighbors,” writes Akiva Eldar.

Israel published tenders for 450 new settlement units on Friday, including a new neighborhood known as East Migron. The move ends an extended period when there was a quiet freeze on new construction over the Green Line. The tenders include 102 units in the Hebron suburb of Kiryat Arba, 78 single-family homes in Alfei Menashe and 156 units in Elkana. The plans also call for 114 units in East Migron, a new neighborhood born out of an agreement by which settlers would evacuate an outpost built on private Palestinian land and move to a new residential area east of the settlement of Adam. Residents violated the deal, and in the end were given an area closer to Migron.

When Palestinian workers at the Tzarfati garage in the West Bank settlement of Mishor Adumim unionized, management made up criminal accusations against the Palestinian chairman of the workers’ committee, exploiting the hostile war-time environment at the time. Management brought in the army, the police, and sent him to military court — resulting in the revocation of his work permit.

Palestinian-American 15-year-old Tariq Abu Khdeir, whose severe beating by Israeli police while he was in custody last summer was caught on video, has been cleared of all wrongdoing in Israel, the Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday.

A teenage Palestinian boy from the northern West Bank village of Tayasir east of Tubas sustained minor injuries on Wednesday afternoon after an unexploded Israeli ordnance blew up when he walked through a field where it had been left.

“There is only one thing that will galvanize Israel to end the occupation and it’s not a new more centrist government,” writes Zeev Sternhell.

Likud continues to top Labor Friday, according to the latest in a flurry of polls released by the major Israeli news agencies this week – as the public strays toward supporting the largest parties in the 20th Knesset. Likud edged out Labor, according to the TNS poll for Walla! News, at 27 and 26 seats, respectively. Far behind is Jewish Home, which ties for third with the united Arab parties at 12 seats each.

The war between Israel and Gaza drove the Palestinian economy of Gaza and the West Bank into its first contraction since 2006, the International Monetary Fund said Thursday.

The Vanguards of Liberation camps, previously organized under the supervision of the Education and Interior Ministries in Hamas-run Gaza, are now under the control of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which some think might be using the camps to recruit young men as fighters.