TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s Cabinet has approved a proposal for 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, the far-right Finance Minister said Sunday.
The settlements include two that were previously evacuated during a 2005 disengagement plan, according to Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich, who has led a settlement expansion agenda in the West Bank.
This brings the total number of new settlements over the past two years to 69, wrote Smotrich on X.
The approval increases the number of settlements in the West Bank by almost 50% during the current government’s term, from 141 in 2022 to 210 after the current approval, according to Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group. The settlements are generally considered illegal under international law.
The approval comes as the United States is pushing Israel and Hamas to move forward with the new phase of the Gaza ceasefire, which came into effect on October 10. The plan obtained by the US calls for a possible “passage” to a Palestinian state – something the settlements are aimed at preventing.
The Cabinet decision included retroactive legalization of some previously established settlement locations or existing settlement districts, and the creation of settlements on land where Palestinians have been evacuated, Peace Now said.
Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza – areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state – in the 1967 war. It settled more than 500,000 Jews in the West Bank, along with more than 200,000 more in disputed East Jerusalem.
Israel’s government is dominated by far-right proponents of the settler movement, including Smotrich and Cabinet Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the nation’s police force.
The settler expansion has been exacerbated by a sharp increase in attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank in recent months.
During the October olive harvest, settlers across the territory launched an average of eight attacks a day, according to the United Nations humanitarian office, the most since it began collecting data in 2006. The attacks continued in November, with the UN recording at least 136 more by November 24.
Settlers burned cars, desecrated mosques, ransacked industrial plants and destroyed cropland. The Israeli authorities did little other than issue occasional condemnations of the violence.
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