Palestinian officers warn Israel’s new settlement plan accelerates annexation and deepens violence throughout the occupied West Bank.
Published On 12 Dec 2025
Israel’s safety cupboard has signed off on plans to formalise 19 unlawful settlements throughout the occupied West Bank, in a transfer Palestinian officers say deepens a decades-long venture of land theft and demographic engineering.
Israeli media reported on Friday that the choice additionally revives two northern West Bank outposts dismantled in the course of the 2005 “disengagement”.
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The Israeli press outlet Ynet claimed the plan “was coordinated with the US upfront”, whereas Channel 14 stated the push got here from far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – a settler himself and one of the vital hardline figures in Israel’s governing coalition.
Settlement enlargement, although unlawful beneath worldwide regulation, is extensively accepted throughout Israel’s political spectrum.
Palestinian officers condemned the choice, warning that it accelerates Israel’s annexation drive.
Mu’ayyad Sha’ban of the Palestinian Authority’s Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission described it as one other step in the direction of erasing Palestinian geography, saying it underscored rising fears about the way forward for the territory.
‘Colonial spoils’
Hamas condemned the plan as a dramatic escalation. In a press release, the group stated the transfer “constitutes a harmful escalation within the annexation and Judaisation venture” and displays a authorities that “treats Palestinian land as colonial spoils and desperately seeks to entrench a settlement actuality, in the end aiming for full management over the West Bank”.
Hamas urged the UN and human rights organisations to confront what it referred to as Israel’s “unchecked colonial behaviour”.
The Palestinian National Council additionally denounced the choice. Its head, Rouhi Fattouh, stated the transfer “constitutes a double violation of worldwide regulation and a blatant breach of worldwide legitimacy”. He added that the coverage “represents a scientific enlargement of a colonial construction … a de facto colonial authority” outlawed beneath international authorized frameworks.
The approval comes as Israeli forces and settlers escalate violence throughout the West Bank, in opposition to the backdrop of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
According to the UN humanitarian workplace (OCHA), not less than 232 Palestinians – together with 52 youngsters – have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers because the begin of the 12 months. OCHA has additionally recorded greater than 1,700 settler assaults inflicting casualties or property harm, averaging 5 assaults per day throughout greater than 270 communities.
Most assaults have been clustered round Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron, areas lengthy focused by settlement enlargement.
Meanwhile, greater than 1,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced this 12 months in Area C, which makes up roughly 60 % of the West Bank and stays beneath full Israeli army management.
Homes have been demolished, seized or sealed, leaving whole communities with out shelter as Israel entrenches an apartheid system throughout the territory.
