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Israel has announced plans to establish 22 Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. This includes officially recognizing some outposts that were constructed without prior government permission.
Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip meanwhile killed at least 13 people overnight into Thursday, local health officials said.
During the 1967 Mideast war, Israel took control of the West Bank, Gaza, and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians seek to claim these areas for their future state. However, most of the global community considers these settlements illegal and a barrier to peace in the ongoing conflict.
Defence Minister Israel Katz stated that the settlement decision “bolsters our presence in Judea and Samaria,” a term referring to the West Bank. He emphasized that it “cements our historical claims to the Land of Israel and serves as a strong counter to Palestinian terrorism.”
He added that the construction of settlements was also “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”.
Watchdog group says it’s biggest expansion since 1993
The Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now said the announcement was the most extensive move of its kind since the 1993 Oslo accords that launched the now-defunct peace process. It said the settlements, which are deep inside the territory, would “dramatically reshape the West Bank and entrench the occupation even further”.
Israel has already built well over 100 settlements across the territory that are home to some 500,000 settlers. The settlements range from small hilltop outposts to fully developed communities with apartment blocks, shopping centres, factories and parks.
The West Bank is home to 3 million Palestinians, who live under Israeli military rule with the Palestinian Authority administering population centres. The settlers have Israeli citizenship.
Peace Now said the plans call for the authorisation of 12 existing outposts, the development of nine new settlements and reclassifying a neighbourhood of an existing settlement as a separate one.
“The government is making clear â again and without restraint â that it prefers deepening the occupation and advancing de facto annexation over pursuing peace,” Peace Now said.
Settlements expand with little or no US pushback
Israel has accelerated settlement construction in recent years â long before Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack ignited the war in Gaza â confining Palestinians to smaller and smaller areas of the West Bank and making the prospect of establishing a viable, independent state even more remote.
During his first term, US President Donald Trump’s administration broke with decades of US foreign policy by supporting Israel’s claims to territory seized by force and taking steps to legitimise the settlements. Former president Joe Biden, like most of his predecessors, opposed the settlements but applied little pressure to Israel to curb their growth.
The top United Nations court ruled last year that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and called on it to end, and for settlement construction to stop immediately.
Israel denounced the non-binding opinion by a 15-judge panel of the International Court of Justice, saying the territories are part of the historic homeland of the Jewish people.
Calls for settlements in war-ravaged Gaza
Israel withdrew its settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, but leading figures in the current government have called for them to be re-established and for much of the Palestinian population of the territory to be resettled elsewhere through what they describe as voluntary emigration.
Palestinians view such plans as a blueprint for their forcible expulsion from their homeland, and experts say the plans would likely violate international law.
Israel now controls more than 70 per cent of Gaza, according to Yaakov Garb, a professor of environmental studies at Ben Gurion University, who has examined Israeli-Palestinian land use patterns for decades.
The area includes buffer zones along the border with Israel as well as the southern city of Rafah, which is now mostly uninhabited, and other large areas that Israel has ordered to be evacuated.
Overnight strikes kill 13
The war began with Hamas’ October 7 attack, in which militants stormed into Israel, killing some 1200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas still holds 58 hostages, about a third of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements. Israeli forces have rescued eight and recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.
Israeli strikes killed at least 13 Palestinians overnight in Gaza, according to local hospitals.
Four were killed in a strike on a car in Gaza City late on Wednesday and another eight, including two women and three children, were killed in a strike on a home in Jabaliya. A strike on a built-up refugee camp in central Gaza killed one person and wounded 18.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants are embedded in populated areas.
