Netanyahu gov’t says West Bank settlement expansion top priority

Benjamin Netanyahu’s incoming hardline Israeli government has put settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank at the top of its list of priorities, a day before it is set to be sworn into office.

Netanyahu’s Likud party released the new government’s policy guidelines on Wednesday, the first of which promises to “advance and develop settlement in all parts of the land of Israel – in the Galilee, Negev, Golan Heights, and Judea and Samaria” – the Biblical names for the occupied Palestinian West Bank.