The White House is “extremely troubled” by the Israeli Knesset’s vote to repeal parts of a 2005 law that had banned Israelis from entering and residing in four communities in the northern West Bank.
Israeli lawmakers approved the private bill—sponsored by Yuli Edelstein, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s National Liberal Movement/Likud party—in a 31-18 vote in the early hours of March 21.
The bill still needs to be approved by an Israeli military commander before it can be enforced.
The law effectively reverses clauses of the 2005 Disengagement Law that ordered the evacuation of four settlements in the northern West Bank—Homesh, Ganim, Kadim, and Sa-Nur—when Israeli forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip, also known as the “disengagement.”…