US special envoy George Mitchell has delayed a planned trip to Israel as tensions remain high between the Obama administration and the Israeli government. Despite pressure from the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to cancel plans to build 1,600 new housing units in a Jewish settlement. On Monday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton reiterated the EU’s condemnation of the settlements.

Catherine Ashton: “Recent Israeli decisions to build new housing units in East Jerusalem have endangered and undermined the tentative agreement to begin proximity talks. The European Union position on settlements is clear. Settlements are illegal, constitute an obstacle to peace, and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible — a solution the Israeli Prime Minister says he supports. Well, he’s right, and these talks are therefore urgent. They’re urgent because I fear for the future, urgent because Israel has a popular Prime Minister who owes it to his people to move to the solution he says he supports.”

More than forty Palestinians were hospitalized today after Israeli police fired teargas and rubber bullets to break up a series of protests in Jerusalem over Israel’s expansion of settlements. Members of Hamas had called on Palestinians to regard today as a day of rage against Israel.