🔗 Share this article

Israel's top security body has voted to recognize the formalization of 19 fresh communities in the occupied West Bank, representing a sustained push for territorial growth.

Hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler who proposed the measure together with Defense Chief Israel Katz, asserted that the move was intended for preventing the formation of a Palestinian state.

Under international law, Israeli settlements in the disputed territories are considered unlawful.

The announcement has sparked condemnation from Saudi Arabia. The United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has said that Israel's "unceasing" growth of communities heightens frictions, limits Palestinian use of land, and jeopardizes the prospects of a sovereign Palestine.

Increased Unrest and Political Fallout

Clashes in the occupied West Bank has increased sharply since the hostilities in Gaza started in the autumn of 2023, adding to fears that settlement expansion could deepen Israel's occupation and undermine the chance for a peaceful resolution based on two states.

The two-state solution involves the establishment of a State of Palestine in the Palestinian territories, with Jerusalem's eastern sector as its seat of government, broadly along the boundaries that were in place before the 1967 Six-Day Middle East war.

Since coming to power in 2022, the current government in Jerusalem has greatly accelerated the green-lighting of new settlements and started the formal recognition for unauthorised outposts, designating them as "neighbourhoods" of existing communities.

A Pattern of Expansion

The most recent decision takes the cumulative figure of settlements recognized over the last three years to sixty-nine, per the figures from Minister Smotrich.

These approvals arrive a short time after the UN reported that settlement expansion had hit its peak since 2017.

The newest group of approvals features the re-establishment of two communities — Ganim and Kadim — which were evacuated almost in 2005.

In a previous move, the Israeli government approved twenty-two additional communities in the occupied West Bank - described as the biggest expansion in many years.

In a related development, the Israeli government sanctioned blueprints last summer to erect more than 3,000 housing units in the so-called E1 area between the capital and the Maale Adumim settlement, a initiative that had been frozen for decades amid fierce foreign condemnation.

On that occasion, Smotrich said it would "end the idea of a Palestinian state."

Demographic Realities and Global Reactions

Roughly seven hundred thousand Israeli settlers live in about 160 communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now. This is territory that the Palestinian people seek for a prospective independent state.

This ongoing construction has drawn ire from Arab states who have repeatedly contended it undermines chances for a peaceful two-state outcome.

It has also fueled concerns about the potential formal annexation of the disputed territories.

Ex- American President Donald Trump had once admonished the Israeli leadership about annexation, telling a publication that Israel would forfeit its backing from the US if it occurred.

In a policy change, the UK - together with other countries including Australia and Canada - formally recognized a State of Palestine, a significant although largely symbolic shift in government policy.

Israel opposed this step, with PM Benjamin Netanyahu asserting that a sovereign Palestine "is off the table."