27 December 2017•Update: 27 December 2017
JERUSALEM
The Israeli government on Wednesday approved the allocation of 40 million Israeli shekels (roughly $11 million) for construction and maintenance of West Bank settlements, according to local media reports.
The allocation also includes a 34.5-million-shekel security grant to “local government” authorities, which oversee Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Haaretz reported.
Israel’s Finance Ministry will provide 29.5 million shekels of the total allocation, while the remaining five million shekels will be provided by the prime minister's office, according to the newspaper.
Haaretz went on to report that the allocation had been abruptly presented to the cabinet on Wednesday following a meeting one day earlier between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a group of influential Jewish rabbis.
The newspaper quoted one unnamed government minister as saying: “I don’t remember resolutions like this. There certainly haven't been many [of them]; certainly not when it is not understood where and to whom [the funds are going].”
Wednesday’s budget allocation comes one day after a group of prominent rabbis met with Netanyahu to request more support for settlement-building activity.
The prime minister, for his part, seeks the rabbis’ support in regards to two ongoing corruption probes in which he has been named as a suspect.
In a statement, Netanyahu’s office denied any link between Wednesday’s budget allocation and Tuesday’s meeting.
“The [budget] decision has no connection with the meeting with the rabbis," the statement read.
International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement-building on the land to be illegal.
Roughly 500,000 Israelis now live in more than 100 Jewish-only settlements built since Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.
The Palestinians want these areas -- along with the Gaza Strip -- for the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
