Israel says it plans to establish 22 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
This process will include both the creation of new settlements and the legalization of existing outposts without government permission.
At the same time, Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip killed 13 people overnight, health officials said.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, and Palestinians want the territory to be a significant part of their future state.
Most countries in the world consider these settlements illegal and an obstacle to resolving the protracted conflict.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the settlement decision “strengthens our authority over Judea and Samaria,” using the biblical term for the West Bank, “affirms our historic right to the Land of Israel and is a decisive response to Palestinian terrorism.”
He added that it also represents “a strategic move to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state that could threaten Israel.”
Israel has already built more than 100 settlements across the territory, home to some 500,000 settlers. These settlements range from small outposts on hilltops to fully developed communities with apartment buildings, shopping malls, factories and public parks.
The West Bank is home to three million Palestinians, who are under Israeli military rule, while the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administers the settlements. The settlers have Israeli citizenship.
In recent years, Israel has accelerated its pace of settlement construction – long before the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, sparked the Gaza war – restricting Palestinian access to ever-shrinking areas of the West Bank and making the prospect of a viable independent state even more elusive.
During its first term, Donald Trump’s administration broke with decades of American foreign policy by supporting Israel’s claims to territory seized by force and taking steps to legitimize settlements. Former President Joe Biden, like most of his predecessors, opposed the settlements but did not put significant pressure on Israel to curb their development.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
