WASHINGTON:
\nThe Biden administration rebuked Israel on Sunday over an order that allows Jewish settlers to establish a permanent presence in a West Bank outpost that Washington has warned Jerusalem it should avoid legitimizing. The chief of the Israeli military\u2019s Central Command signed an order on Thursday that allows Israelis to enter the Homesh outpost area, paving the way for a formal settlement to be built there, the Times of Israel reported.
\nThe State Department has repeatedly called on Israel to refrain from any moves that escalate tensions with Palestinians, like formalizing settler outposts, and specifically warned it over Homesh.
\n\u201cWe are deeply troubled by the Israeli government\u2019s order that allows its citizens to establish a permanent presence in the Homesh outpost in the northern West Bank, which according to Israeli law was illegally built on private Palestinian land,\u201d State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
\nThe order is inconsistent with Israeli government commitments made in 2004 and more recently to Biden administration officials, Miller said. Israel\u2019s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
\nAn Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the order in question was intended to allow Israelis to keep attending an existing religious school in Homesh, and that the government has no intention of rebuilding the settlement or allowing Israeli presence on private Palestinian land. The reproach by the US comes after months of escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians that have tested ties between Washington and its main ally in the Middle East.
\nEarlier on Sunday, Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, part of a far-right government that came to power in December, visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, sacred to both Muslims and Jews, who know it as Temple Mount, and declared Israel was \u201cin charge.\u201d
\nMiller said Washington was also concerned about the \u201cprovocative visit\u201d and \u201caccompanying inflammatory rhetoric.\u201d
\n\u201cThis holy space should not be used for political purposes, and we call on all parties to respect its sanctity,\u201d he said, also reaffirming the US position that the status quo should be maintained at Jerusalem\u2019s holy sites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: The Biden administration rebuked Israel on Sunday over an order that allows Jewish settlers to establish a permanent presence in a West Bank outpost that Washington has warned Jerusalem it should avoid legitimizing. The chief of the Israeli military\u2019s Central Command signed an order on Thursday that allows Israelis to enter the Homesh outpost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-332860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n