Just hours after it said it had completed its withdrawal operations from Gaza and the West Bank, Israel issued orders to seize Palestinian land to build a massive weaponized separation barrier in a plan that would essentially annex the West Bank’s largest Jewish settlement to Jerusalem. The US State Department said it opposed the plan, while Palestinians charged that Israel issued the confiscation orders in the West Bank while world attention was still focused on the forcible removal of Jewish settlers and demolition of their homes by Israeli bulldozers. The massive barrier would cut some Palestinians off from areas of Jerusalem.