The Israeli government has approved 5,295 new homes in a multitude of illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank, and also recognized three new settlement outposts in Palestinian territory, according to a monitoring group.
Israeli NGO Peace Now announced the decision on Thursday, a day after the group said the Israeli government had approved the largest land seizure in the West Bank in more than three decades.
Israeli settlement construction on Palestinian territory is illegal under international law and settlement expansion is seen as a major obstacle to the viability of a future Palestinian state.
The new approvals are sure to further inflame tensions at a time when Palestinians in the occupied West Bank face increased raids by Israeli forces and settlers as part of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.
“Our government continues to change the rules of the game in the occupied West Bank, causing irreversible damage,” the Peace Now organization said in a statement Thursday, condemning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Smotrich, himself a settler, has overseen a major escalation of settlement expansion under Netanyahu. He is also among the far-right politicians the prime minister relies on for his political survival.
“This annexationist government is seriously undermining the security and future of Israelis and Palestinians, and the cost of this recklessness will be paid for generations to come,” said Peace Now, which also condemned the appointment of Smotrich’s top allies to the body that approves settlements.
More than 500,000 Israeli citizens live in over 100 settlements in the West Bank. Their existence remains a major obstacle to the implementation of the Oslo Accords, which promised the gradual transfer of Israeli-controlled areas to the Palestinians.
According to Peace Now, the latest approved settlements, all of which have existed since the late 2010s as unofficial outposts, are Givat Hanan, Kedem Arava and Machane Gadi in the Jordan Valley.
Israel’s Higher Planning Council (HPC) justified the approval by saying the outposts were existing “neighborhoods” of existing settlements, although they were physically separate from those settlements, the group said.
The watchdog added that the new settlements were separate from five other new settlements approved by the cabinet last week.
“Totally unacceptable”
The approval of the new settlements comes just a day after Peace Now reported that Israel had claimed about 23.7 square kilometers (9.15 square miles) of land in the occupied West Bank so far this year, a rate the group called unprecedented.
This included approving the seizure of 12.7 square kilometers (4.9 square miles) of land in the Jordan Valley late last month.
On Thursday, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide called the latest actions “totally unacceptable.”
“Norway condemns these decisions and we call on the Israeli government to immediately reverse them,” he said in a statement, in which he denounced the government’s policy of “dispossession, land confiscation and the establishment of illegal settlements.”
In May, Norway joined Spain and Ireland as the latest countries to formally recognize a Palestinian state.
Settlements have also been one of the few areas where the United States has been willing to directly confront its “steadfast” ally Israel, although critics have said Washington has neglected to use the levers at its disposal to pressure Israel.
On Tuesday, US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said that “unilateral actions such as settlement expansion and legalization of outposts” were “detrimental to a two-state solution.”
“We will therefore continue to use the tools at our disposal to denounce and promote accountability for those who threaten peace and stability in the region,” he said.
Since the start of the war on Gaza, violence by the Israeli army and settlers in the occupied West Bank has intensified. Around three million Palestinians in the territory are subjected to Israeli military rule.
Since October, at least 553 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, and 9,510 have been arrested, according to Palestinian officials.
At least 38,011 people have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza since October, according to Palestinian authorities.
Israel launched the assault on Gaza after Hamas carried out an attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,139 people, according to an Tel Aviv Tribune tally based on Israeli statistics.