Israel Greenlights Largest Illegal Settlement Expansion in West Bank in Decades

Israeli officials have announced a plan to advance settler colonialism in the occupied West Bank by establishing 22 new settlements, in open defiance of international law.

Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who have previously pushed for the total annexation of the West Bank, said in a statement that the expansion is aimed at furthering Israel’s goal of quashing any possibility of a Palestinian state.

“All the new communities are being established with a long-term strategic vision, aimed at reinforcing Israeli control of the territory, preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, and securing development reserves for settlement in the coming decades,” the ministers said.

The expansion includes the legalization, under Israeli law, of numerous existing Israeli outposts technically built without authorization but still created under the purview and with the protection of Israeli soldiers. Such illegal outposts have ballooned since Israel began its genocide in Gaza, with settlers builiding dozens of new outposts through violent expulsion of Palestinians from their land.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called the expansion announcement a “dangerous escalation” that will perpetuate a “cycle of violence and instability” in the region already facing an increase in Israeli settler violence.

“This decision violates all international resolutions, especially UN Security Council Resolution 2334,” which reaffirms the illegality of Israel’s settlements in Palestine, Rudeineh said.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a historic decision last year ruling that Israel’s occupation and annexation of Palestine is illegal. It ordered Israel and Israeli settlers — who are often explicitly backed by Israeli leaders — to end all new settlement activities.

In other words, the announcement of yet more settlements blatantly flouts international law.

Israeli group Peace Now says that this is the largest single settlement expansion since the signing of the Oslo Accords over 30 years ago, and condemned the announcement as “advancing de facto annexation.”

Israel has already established roughly 160 settlements, housing 700,000 Israelis, in the tiny territory roughly the size of Delaware.

Israel has been accelerating settlement establishment at a record pace throughout its genocide in Gaza. Officials carry this out through recognizing settlements and through means like demolishing thousands of Palestinians’ homes, paving the way for future outposts or settlements and forcing Palestinians to consider leaving the territory entirely.

The latest expansion comes as Israel has embarked on what appears to be the final stages of its genocide in Gaza. Officials like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are no longer hiding their intentions of the forced expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza in order to make way for total Israeli control of the territory.