While Israel has not launched new settlements in recent decades, extensive construction has focussed on expanding existing settlements.
Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to try and reach a "historic deal" between the sides.
A wave of unrest that broke out in October 2015 has claimed the lives of 273 Palestinians, 42 Israelis, two Americans, two Jordanians, an Eritrean, a Sudanese and a Briton, according to an AFP tally.
Jason Greenblatt, the United States special representative for global negotiations, arrived in Israel on Monday for preliminary discussions in Jerusalem and Ramallah, and will remain for follow-up talks after Kushner has left, Reuters reported.
The Amichai settlement will be the first new government-sanctioned Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories in some 25 years.
Can the USA remain impartial?
Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner, who also is the president's Jewish son-in-law, is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Wednesday for meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials to push for restarted peace talks between the two sides.
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More than 250 investigators are examining how the fire started and the speed with which it spread. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he welcomed the resignation but that it was still not enough.
Mr Trump condemned the decision at the time. In his own trip to the region last month, Trump said nurturing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia could help produce the wider Mideast pact that former U.S. President Barack Obama and his predecessors failed to deliver.
Since then, conversations have been ongoing, the White House official said.
The bulldozer's driver, a kippah-wearing Israeli who said he was from a settlement in the southern West Bank, said they were laying the foundations for two new roads that would lead to the new settlement.
Kushner's family foundation, the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation, has donated tens of thousands of dollars to organizations and institutions in West Bank settlements.
He also met with former Israeli peace envoy Isaac Molcho and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Between 500,000 and 600,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of global law, with recent announcements of settlement expansion provoking condemnation from the worldwide community.
The settlements include those that Israel considers legal as well as at least 100 wildcat outposts. He has not even been clear about whether he supports a two-state solution - the cornerstone of worldwide diplomatic efforts for the past two decades. The lands had earlier the year been seized and turned into state lands by the Israeli authorities. Moreover, the far-right government has changed the laws surrounding seizing Palestinian land for the sake of settlements to prevent another Amona.



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