The Associated Press reported on Oct. 21 that Israeli settlement construction has more than quadrupled its pace since the construction slowdown expired last month.

Based on tours of 16 settlements, more than four dozen calls to settlements and interviews with settler leaders and construction workers, the AP discovered at least 550 housing starts in just three weeks, a conservative estimate according to the report. Israeli human rights group Peace Now is set to release their own report next week detailing 600 housing starts since the end of the moratorium.

While not comprehensive, the AP survey represents the most extensive effort yet to analyze and quantify the construction.

"This figure is alarming and is another indicator that Israel is not serious about the peace process, which is supposed to be about ending the occupation," said Ghassan Khatib, PA representative.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has played down the new construction, saying it "has no real effect on the map of a possible (peace) agreement."

Yet the renewed housing starts threaten the moribund peace talks restarted just last month since most of the construction is on land assumed to be part of a future Palestinian state, and Palestinians refuse to continue negotiations if the freeze is not extended.

This construction boom compares to average annual housing starts of about 2,000 in recent years, a rate of about 115 in three weeks making the current pace at least four times faster.

Aside from picking up the pace of new construction this week, the United Nations reported on Oct. 22 that settlers also increased attacks on Palestinians, especially farmers since the annual olive harvest began earlier in October.

The report said settlers burned, stole from, uprooted, vandalized or damaged olive orchards in Mikhmas (Ramallah), Tel (Nablus), Al-Lubban Asharqiya (Nablus), Husan (Bethlehem), and Kafr Qaddum (Qalqilia). Additionally, following the publication of the report, Palestinian media reported a settler attack on farmers in Yatta (Hebron).

Settlers have destroyed thousands of olive trees across the West Bank since the olive harvest began in early October and Palestinian farmers have reported frequent attacks while trying to harvest their crops. An internal Israeli defense document obtained by the Israeli daily Haaretz said this harvest had been the most violent in years, despite the deployment of Israeli soldiers to the area of some Israeli settlements at specific periods of time to protect farmers as they harvest.

Out of 11 incidents of settler violence recorded by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affiars, seven incidents were related to the olive harvest and resulted in seven Palestinians, including two children, injured by settlers.

The UN report said tensions have been rising in general between settler populations and Palestinians with clashes recorded all week in east Jerusalem, where the majority of Palestinian injuries from the conflict are incurred.

The report named the Silwan neighborhood as the most violent flashpoint in Jerusalem with Palestinian residents pitted against Israeli settlers, armed private guards and Israeli police in clashes all week. Municipal demolition orders and evictions in the neighborhood were also said to contribute to the rising tensions. Omran Mansour, a child who was caught on camera last week being run over by a car while throwing stones at settlers in Silwan, was sentenced on Oct. 18 to two weeks of house arrest and fined NIS2,000.

During the week, Israeli forces injured 23 Palestinian civilians, according to the report, the large majority of them in the context of violent clashes in east Jerusalem. The number of Palestinians injured by Israeli forces since the beginning of 2010 is nearly 36 percent above the figure recorded for the parallel period in 2009 (979 compared to 720). Some 53 percent of Palestinian injuries in 2010 have occurred in east Jerusalem.

In the West Bank, settlers’ “price tag” campaign in which settlers seek revenge for restrictions on their construction on the local Palestinians has continued with the vandalism of a girls’ school near Nablus and a cemetery in Kafr Qaddum near Qalqilia on Oct. 20 and 22 respectively. Settlers burned the warehouse of the school and left the message “regards from the hills”; in the cemetery the phrase “price tag” was spray painted on a grave.

On the diplomatic front, international reports say the U.S. has given up efforts to break the current stalemate in negotiations between President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu until after the Nov. 2 American midterm elections, a charge the White House denies. American President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party is expected to take heavy losses, which could have great domestic political implications that could affect his ability to pressure the parties to come to an agreement.

Unification talks between rival Palestinian parties Fatah and Hamas have been suspended after Abbas announced Fatah would not agree to holding the next round of discussions in Damascus where they were set to continue on Oct. 20. Fatah said Syria “humiliated” the Palestinians at the recent Arab League summit in Sirtre, Libya.

Syria has since said it would offer Fatah a formal invitation saying a dispute between the two has been resolved. Meanwhile, a Fatah delegation is set to visit Gaza on Oct. 24 in a bid to improve relations ahead of continued negotiations to end the years of internal Palestinian rivalry.

Norway, Canada, Ireland, UK, Sweden, Iceland, Turkey and South Africa were not present at the OECD tourism conference Oct. 20 through 22 in Jerusalem. Several said they skipped the meeting in response to Israeli tourism minister Stas Misezhnikov’s claim that hosting the meeting in Jerusalem served as de-facto recognition of Israel’s claim of the city as Israel’s undivided capital.

While most of the invited countries did attend, the majority did not send tourism ministers but sent low-ranking officials instead. The Czech Republic was reportedly the only EU country to send full political representation.

Israeli authorities decided to close all crossings into and out of the Gaza Strip on Oct. 22 according to Palestinian official Raed Fattouh. He said the crossings would be closed until Sunday, in spite of the same-day announcement that fuel shortages at Gaza’s sole power station are causing rolling blackouts throughout the Strip.

The Gaza Electricity Company said efforts to open Kerem Shalom crossing for the entry of fuel had failed. Power would be provided for eight hours, followed by an eight-hour blackout.

The PA confirmed Oct. 22 that security services discovered a “huge” weapons cache in a Ramallah warehouse allegedly belonging to Hamas. Many weapons and ammunition were found at the site.

An Israeli military drone crashed in the northern Gaza Strip on Oct. 21 according to the Israeli army. A spokeswoman said the Israeli military had entered the Strip and successfully retrieved it, but offered no explanation as to why the drone went down.

The PA announced Oct. 20 that it is ready to establish the first international airport in the West Bank based on “international standards”, with work expected to begin mid 2011. The project is estimated to cost $340 million to be incorporated into the PA development budget and would handle commercial traffic.

The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism said the airport would be under Palestinian sovereignty and approval was not sought from the Israelis before announcing the project.