Legally controlled land grew from 530,931 to 538,303 dunams over the course of the year, a total increase of 7,372 dunams.

By Chaim Levinson

Israeli settlements in the West Bank legally expanded by nearly 8,000 dunams (1977 acres) in 2012 - land equaling the entire city of Bat Yam and twice as big as Manhattan's Central Park.

A trip through the West Bank with Dror Etkes, who tracks how Israel's settlements are altering the physical, political and human landscape in one of the world's most complicated pieces of land

By Matti Friedman

It has been just over a decade since Dror Etkes began criss-crossing the West Bank in a long war of unstinting dedication and uncertain efficacy against the spread of Israeli settlements...

By: Akiva Eldar

According to unofficial reports, certain progress was made at the talks held earlier this month (May 8) in Rome between Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's representative Isaac Molho and US Secretary of State John Kerry, in which senior officials from Jordan and Qatar also took part. Nonetheless, diplomatic sources caution that the progress regarding negotiation guidelines (a return to the 1967 border and an exchange of territories) is, in fact, a "manipulation" designed to improve Israel's international standing in order to prepare for a possible attack on Iran.

At the same time, there has been a considerable slowdown of construction in the settlements in the past few months. The Palestinians have set June 6 as the deadline for resumption of the diplomatic process...