JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel plans to appropriate a large tract of agricultural land in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s Army Radio said on Wednesday, a move that has angered Palestinians and is almost certain to draw international criticism.

The report said the land, covering 380 acres, was in the fertile Jordan Valley close to Jericho, an area where Israel already has many settlement farms built on land Palestinians seek for their own state.

The appropriation, which Army Radio said would be announced shortly but was not immediately confirmed by the Israeli Defense Ministry which administers the West Bank, comes at a time of increased international condemnation of settlement policy.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organization, described Israel’s reported move as a violation of international law. She challenged the international community to hold Israel to account.

“Israel is stealing land specially in the Jordan Valley under the pretext it wants to annex it,” she told Reuters. “This should be a reason for a real and effective intervention by the international community to end such a flagrant and grave aggression which kills all chances of peace.”

The report said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon had already signed off on the appropriation and that technical details were being finalised ahead of a declaration expected soon.

The Defense Ministry declined to comment.

The land, already partly farmed by Jewish settlers in an area under Israeli civilian and military control, is situated near the northern tip of the Dead Sea.

For years, Israel has drawn intense criticism for its settlement activities. Most countries regard the policy as illegal under international law and a major obstacle to the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

Palestinians want to form an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as the capital. The last talks between Israel and the Palestinians on a so-called “two-state solution” broke down in April 2014.

On Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby reiterated the United States’ opposition to Israel’s settlement building, which usually begins with land seizures.

“We remain deeply concerned about Israel’s current policy on settlements, including construction, planning, and retroactive legalizations,” he said.

Hagit Ofran, a member of the anti-settlement group Peace Now, said that unlike previous Israeli governments that largely avoided land seizures, Netanyahu has carried out several appropriations during his time in office.

“Since 2011, moves of this sort by Netanyahu have only drawn greater international criticism from Israel’s closest allies,” she told Reuters, describing it as a “diplomatic catastrophe”.

In August 2014, soon after Hamas militants kidnapped and killed three Jewish teenagers, Israel appropriated some 988 acres in the Etzion settlement bloc near Bethlehem, a move Peace Now said was the biggest in 30 years.

Since Oct. 1, when the latest upsurge in violence began, Palestinian stabbings, car-rammings and shootings have killed 25 Israelis and a U.S. citizen. At least 148 Palestinians have been killed, 94 of whom Israel has described as assailants. Most of the others died during violent demonstrations.

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli troops shot and wounded a Palestinian teenager who stabbed a pregnant Israeli woman in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday, amid signs of Palestinians stepping up attacks on Israelis inside Jewish settlements.

The military ordered Palestinian laborers to leave their workplaces in some settlements as the violence spread from streets and bus stops in the West Bank and Israel to within the usually well-protected Israeli enclaves.

Hospital officials said the woman stabbed in Tekoa, a settlement near Bethlehem, was in moderate condition at a Jerusalem hospital, with the fetus unharmed. The stabber, 17, was in serious condition after being shot in the leg. He was being treated at another Jerusalem hospital.

The stabbing was the second at a Jewish settlement in as many days. On Sunday, an assailant stabbed to death a mother of six at her home in the southern West Bank. The attacker is still being sought.

The wave of Palestinian violence, now in its fourth month, has been fueled by various factors including frustration over the 2014 collapse of peace talks and the growth of Jewish settlements on land Palestinians seek for a future state.

Also stoking the strife has been Muslim opposition to increased Jewish visits to Jerusalem’s al Aqsa mosque complex, which is one of the holiest sites in Islam and is revered in Judaism as the location of two ancient biblical temples.

The Israeli military ordered all Palestinian laborers who work in the large Gush Etzion bloc of settlements in the southern West Bank to quit their places of employment after the Tekoa attack. Some were seen being driven away in the back of a large dump truck.

“In light of situation assessments and following recent terror attacks … Palestinian workers have been instructed to leave (Gush Etzion) communities,” an army statement said.

The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, condemned the recent stabbings as “barbaric acts of terrorism” but also criticized Israel for not doing enough to stop violence by far-right Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank.

“Too many attacks on Palestinians lack a vigorous investigation or response by Israeli authorities, too much vigilantism goes unchecked, and at times there seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law – one for Israelis and another for Palestinians,” he said at a security conference.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement later rejecting Shapiro’s comments, calling them “unacceptable and untrue. Israel enforces the law on Israelis and on Palestinians”.

Analysts said increased tensions could prompt settlers who have a strong voice in Israel’s right-wing government to lobby for tougher travel and employment restrictions on Palestinians, a step that could in turn further inflame the atmosphere.

“The more settlers feel vulnerable to such brutal attacks, their influential leaders would increase their pressure on the government to more sharply separate Palestinians from settlers,” Ofer Zalzberg of the International Crisis Group think tank said.

“If (the) past is precedent, such separation, notably the allocation of some West Bank roads exclusively to settlers by diverting Palestinian traffic to secondary tortuous ones, would further radicalize Palestinians.”

On Sunday, Daphne Meir, a hospital nurse, was stabbed to death as she tried to fend off an attacker who broke into her home. Neighbors in the settlement of Otniel said they heard one of her daughters screaming for help.

Netanyahu promised that police would find the attacker and bring him to justice. He added that Israel would bolster the settlements’ security, although he did not elaborate.

The latest bloodshed occurred a few days after Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon declared that grassroots Palestinian violence was on the wane.

Since Oct. 1 when the upsurge in violence began, Palestinian stabbings, car-rammings and shootings have killed 25 Israelis and a U.S. citizen. At least 148 Palestinians have been killed, 94 of whom Israel has described as assailants. Most of the others died during violent demonstrations.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers shot dead three Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday including one the military said had tried to stab a soldier, as four months of tensions simmered.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said a 21-year-old Palestinian was killed by Israeli army gunfire during a confrontation between troops and protesters in the town of Beit Jalla, near Bethlehem. The military said troops had fired at “rioters who hurled firebombs and rocks at the soldiers”.

In a separate incident, a military spokeswoman said troops fatally shot a Palestinian who got out of a car and tried to stab a soldier in the West Bank city of Hebron. The driver of the vehicle was shot and wounded, and fled the scene, the spokeswoman added. Palestinian officials said he died.

Since Oct. 1, Palestinian stabbings, car-rammings and shooting attacks have killed 24 Israelis and a U.S. citizen. The wave of bloodshed has raised fears of wider escalation, a decade after the last Palestinian uprising subsided.

During the period, Israeli forces or armed civilians have killed at least 142 Palestinians, 90 of whom authorities described as assailants. Most others have been killed in clashes with security forces.

Four Israelis, including a soldier and a prison officer, were charged on Tuesday with aggravated assault in connection with the death of an Eritrean national, who was shot and beaten after being mistaken for a gunman during an attack in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba on Oct. 18.

An Arab citizen of Israel shot and killed one person and wounded 11 in the incident. He was shot dead, and a security guard also fired at the Eritrean, wounding him.

The Eritrean, an asylum-seeker, was then set upon by the four defendants, who prosecutors said kicked him as he lay on the ground and hit him with a bench. He died of his wounds.

The security guard, who authorities said had acted reasonably in the heat of the shooting attack, was not charged.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta, Writing by Ori Lewis, Editing by Jeffrey Heller)