Israel plans to construct almost 5,000 new settler units in occupied West Bank

  The Israeli minister of military affairs and alternate prime minister, Benny Gantz, is reportedly seeking to approve the construction of some 5,000 new settler units, after more than six months during which such construction has been frozen, Israel's Channel 12 television network reported. According to the report, which did not cite any sources, Gantz intends to convene the so-called Civil Administration Planning Committee next week to approve the construction. Gantz has reportedly sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office with a request to assemble the committee. The move is seen as a potential maneuver by the 61-year-old leader of the centrist Blue and White party to strengthen ties with settler leaders, who are currently fuming at Netanyahu, who purportedly suspended annexation plans and opted instead to normalize ties with the United Arab Emirates last month. Israel and the UAE agreed to a US-brokered deal to normalize relations on August 13. Under the agreement, the Tel Aviv regime has purportedly agreed to "temporarily" suspend applying its own rule to further areas in the occupied West Bank and the strategic Jordan Valley that Netanyahu had pledged to annex. While Emirati officials have described the normalization deal with the Tel Aviv regime as a successful means to stave off annexation and save the so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israeli leaders have lined up to reject the bluff of Abu Dhabi's crown prince and de facto ruler of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, that Israel's annexation plans were off the table. Netanyahu has underlined that annexation is not off the table, but has simply been delayed. The Palestinians have vehemently censured the UAE-Israel peace deal, which runs counter to a long-standing Arab consensus that any normalization of ties with the Tel Aviv regime has to come in the context of the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.