AhlulBayt News Agency: A Palestinian anti-settlement organization has warned that Israel is intensifying efforts to legalize settlement outposts and so-called pastoral farms, turning them into recognized settlements in defiance of international law and UN resolutions, with open backing from the United States.
The National Office for the Defense of Land and Resistance to Settlements stated in its latest report that Israel’s security cabinet has approved the establishment of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank—a move widely condemned as a major violation of international law.
The office noted that far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich hailed the decision as historic, saying its purpose is to block any possibility of a Palestinian state.
According to the report, these approvals bring the total number of authorized settlements in the past three years to 69, marking an unprecedented surge in expansion, as Smotrich himself acknowledged.
The newly approved settlements are spread across the West Bank and include areas evacuated in 2005, illegal outposts, extremist pastoral farms, or parts of existing settlements reclassified as independent ones.
This reclassification provides them with access to official budgets, infrastructure, and other state benefits, the rights group explained.
The report said these measures are part of a broader strategy by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration to legalize unauthorized outposts and strengthen Israeli control in the West Bank.
Earlier steps included isolating settlement neighborhoods from major blocs and granting retroactive legal status to numerous outposts.
Some settlements now being regularized, such as Ganim and Kadim, date back to the 1980s and later became isolated communities within areas designated as A and B under the Oslo Accords.
The report stressed that these settlements fragment Palestinian territory, especially in the northern West Bank, in areas previously off-limits under the 2005 disengagement law, which dismantled four settlements in that region.
It added that outposts and pastoral farms are being converted into formal settlements, alongside plans to expand existing ones with hundreds of new housing units.
The initiative is part of a larger settlement project aimed at seizing more Palestinian land, the office said.
Since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, authorities have reviewed about 355 master plans for 37,415 settlement units across 38,551 dunams (39 square kilometers) of Palestinian land. Of these, 18,801 units have been approved, while 18,614 remain under review.
Currently, over 700,000 Israeli settlers live in more than 230 settlements established since the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
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