Israel is preparing to build more than 1,000 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem as the United States strives to revive dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, an NGO said late Wednesday. Danny Seidemann, director of Jerusalem settlement watchdog Terrestrial Jerusalem, told AFP that contracts for 300 homes in the northeastern settlement of Ramot were signed and another 797 plots were to be offered for sale in the southern Jerusalem settlement of Gilo, near the West bank city of Jerusalem.

Suspected Jewish extremists carried out a string of attacks against about 20 Palestinian cars in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israeli police and witnesses said on Wednesday. The attacks appeared to be linked to the stabbing of a Jewish settler called Eviatar Borovsky who was killed by a knife-wielding Palestinian in the northern West Bank exactly 30 days ago. Wednesday marked the official ending of the traditional mourning period.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - A group of 80 international aid agencies urged the European Union on Saturday to follow through on pledges it made last year to back Palestinian communities seen as vulnerable to Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. Not enough action has been taken since EU foreign ministers last May urged Israel to ease curbs to growth on Palestinian villages and criticized its settlement policies, the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA) said in a report.

By Arshad Mohammed JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials on Thursday and acknowledged there was considerable skepticism that the two sides would resume peace negotiations. There were no signs of any breakthrough as Kerry visited Israel for the fourth time in his four months in office to try to revive a peace process that has been moribund for more than two years.