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ISRAEL has approved the establishment of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, a decision that the country’s far-right finance minister said was aimed at preventing the creation of a Palestinian state.
AFP reported that the decision by Israel’s security cabinet brings the total number of settlements approved over the past three years to 69, according to a statement from the office of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The approval comes just days after the United Nations said Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank, all of which are considered illegal under international law, had reached its highest level since at least 2017.
“The proposal by Smotrich and Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz to declare and formalise 19 new settlements in Judea and Samaria has been approved by the cabinet,” the statement said, using Israel’s biblical term for the West Bank, without specifying when the decision was taken.
Final approval was granted by the security cabinet, part of Israel’s right-wing government. Smotrich, himself a settler and a long-time advocate of settlement expansion, welcomed the move in stark political terms.
“On the ground, we are preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. We will continue to develop, build and settle our ancestral land, with confidence in the justice of our cause,” he said.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has recently condemned what he described as Israel’s “relentless” expansion of settlements in the occupied territory.
He said the policy continues to inflame tensions, restrict Palestinians’ access to their land and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous and sovereign Palestinian state.
Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, international calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state have intensified. Several European countries, along with Canada and Australia, have recently taken steps to formally recognise Palestinian statehood, moves that have drawn sharp criticism from Israel.
A UN report said settlement expansion is now at its highest level since 2017, when the organisation began systematically tracking the data.
“These figures represent a significant increase compared with previous years,” Guterres said, noting that an average of 12,815 housing units were built annually between 2017 and 2022.
Excluding East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied and later annexed in 1967, more than 500,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank alongside about three million Palestinians.
Smotrich’s office said the newly approved settlements are located in areas described as “highly strategic”. Two of them, Ganim and Kadim in the northern West Bank, are to be redeveloped after having been dismantled about two decades ago.
At least five of the 19 settlements already exist on the ground but had not previously been granted official legal status under Israeli law, according to the statement.
All Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory are regarded as illegal under international law. In addition, a number of unauthorised outposts have been established in violation of Israeli law itself, though many are later retroactively legalised by Israeli authorities, fuelling concerns about de facto annexation of the occupied territory.
The latest approvals are expected to further strain Israel’s relations with the international community as scrutiny intensifies over its settlement policy and the future of a two-state solution. - December 22, 2025
