Tensions rise across the region following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to include West Bank shrines in a national heritage plan.
Tension was on the rise across the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Tuesday (February 23) after Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a plan to include West Bank shrines in a national heritage plan.
On Sunday (February 21) Israel said it wanted to include two Jewish shrines in the occupied West Bank in a national plan to rehabi Read more

Tensions rise across the region following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to include West Bank shrines in a national heritage plan.
Tension was on the rise across the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Tuesday (February 23) after Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a plan to include West Bank shrines in a national heritage plan.
On Sunday (February 21) Israel said it wanted to include two Jewish shrines in the occupied West Bank in a national plan to rehabilitate some 150 Jewish and Zionist heritage sites, drawing condemnation from the Palestinians.
Netanyahu was quoted in a statement as saying that Rachel's Tomb, near the city of Bethlehem, and the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site holy to Muslims and Jews in the tinderbox city of Hebron, would be part of the plan.
In Hebron, the biggest West Bank city Israeli troops clashed with Palestinian stonethrowers, but no casualties were reported.
Hamas leader in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh condemned Netanyahu's decision, calling it a "vicious Zionist plan".
"What is taking place in Hebron and the Ibrahimi Mosque is an extension of a recurring old Zionist policy. It is the implementation of a vicious Zionist plan aimed at restraining our identity and changing the features of our Islamic heritage on the land of Palestine," he told a news conference in Gaza City.
Israeli media reported that the two disputed sites had been included in the plan only after pressure from nationalist ministers in Netanyahu's right-leaning coalition government.
Rachel's Tomb, which lies between Jerusalem and Bethlehem is revered by Jews as the grave site of the matriarch Rachel. It is guarded by Israeli soldiers and surrounded by a fence.
Residents of Bethlehem closed their shops and businesses as part of a commercial strike against the Israeli plan.
"Palestinian youths, workers, national organisations - we are all proud of our nationalism and therefore we condemn and denounce what that person (Netanyahu) said. And we will declare a clear national position to protect our national and Islamic heritage and also to defend, first of all, the al-Aqsa shrine, and all the holy Christian and Muslim sites in Palestine - including Ibrahimi Mosque (Tomb of the Patriarchs) and of course Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque, and not Rachel's Tomb, as the Zionist entity refers to it," said Bethlehem resident Samer Umi.
Netanyahu, who last year ordered a limited 10-month freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank, says he is ready to resume peace talks immediately and without preconditions.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says peace talks cannot resume without a full settlement freeze that includes East Jerusalem. Close