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The Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal for 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, the far-right finance minister said on Sunday.
According to Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich, the settlements include two areas that were previously evacuated during a 2005 disengagement plan.
Smotrich has pushed the expansion agenda. It brings the total number of new settlements over the past two years to 69, Smotrich wrote on X.
“The proposal by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz to declare and formalise 19 new settlements in Judea and Samaria has been approved by the cabinet,” the statement said, without specifying when the decision was taken.
“We will continue to develop, build, and settle the land of our ancestral heritage, with faith in the justice of our path,” he added further.
The approval comes as the US is pushing Israel and Hamas to move ahead with the new phase of the Gaza ceasefire, which took effect Oct. 10. The US-proposed peace plan calls for a possible “pathway” to a Palestinian state — something the settlements are aimed at preventing.
The approval increases the number of settlements in the West Bank by nearly 50 per cent during the current government’s tenure, from 141 in 2022 to 210, after the current approval, according to Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group. Settlements are widely considered illegal under international law.
The Cabinet decision included a retroactive legalization of some previously established settlement outposts and the creation of settlements on land where Palestinians were evacuated, Peace Now said.
The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission condemned the move as “a dangerous escalation that exposes the true intentions of the occupation government to entrench a system of annexation, apartheid, and full Judaization of Palestinian land.”
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View AllSettler expansion has been compounded by deadly attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank in recent months.