Israeli Channel 14 quoted Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announcing the confiscation of about 24,000 dunams of Palestinian land for the benefit of settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, and his assertion that there will never be what he described as an Arab terrorist state threatening the existence of Israel.
Israeli Channel 14 said that the decision to confiscate Palestinian lands will allow for an unprecedented strengthening of planning and construction in West Bank settlements.
The Israeli channel added that the first settlement to benefit from this confiscation is the Maale Adumim settlement, which will be expanded by more than two thousand six hundred 2,600 dunums, to be linked to the Kedar settlement in the south at the expense of the lands of the Palestinian Bedouin population.
She added that the decision is a very important step to strengthen settlement in the West Bank by confiscating tens of thousands of dunums that were not considered state land until today.
Channel 14 also indicated that the Yafit settlement in the Jordan Valley received the largest share, as it will be expanded with an additional area of more than 20 thousand dunums.
She explained that the expansion of the Yafit settlement is a unique expansion of settlement development in the middle of the Jordan Valley.
The Israeli channel explained that since the Oslo Accords, a total of 50,000 dunams of state land have been declared belonging to Israel, and the new declaration represents about half of the area of land confiscated over all the past years.