JERUSALEM: Israel’s security cabinet approved the establishment of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move the country’s far-right finance minister said on Sunday was aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The decision brings the total number of settlements approved over the past three years to 69, according to a statement from the office of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The latest approvals come days after the United Nations said the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank — all of which are considered illegal under international law — had reached its highest level since at least 2017.
“The proposal by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz to declare and formalize 19 new settlements in Judea and Samaria has been approved by the cabinet,” the statement said, without specifying when the decision was taken.
Smotrich is a vocal proponent of settlement expansion and a settler himself.
“On the ground, we are blocking the establishment of a Palestinian terror state,” he said in the statement.
“We will continue to develop, build, and settle the land of our ancestral heritage, with faith in the justice of our path.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has recently condemned what he described as Israel’s “relentless” expansion of settlements in the occupied territory.
It “continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous and sovereign Palestinian State,” he said earlier this month.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state have proliferated, with several European countries, Canada and Australia recently moving to formally recognize such a state, drawing rebukes from Israel.
‘Sharp increase’
A UN report said the expansion of settlements was at its highest point since 2017, when the United Nations began tracking such data.
“These figures represent a sharp increase compared to previous years,” Guterres said, noting an average of 12,815 housing units were added annually between 2017 and 2022.
“These developments are further entrenching the unlawful Israeli occupation and violating international law and undermining the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”
Excluding east Jerusalem, which was occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967, more than 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, along with about three million Palestinian residents.
Smotrich’s office said the 19 newly approved settlements are located in what it described as “highly strategic” areas, adding that two of them — Ganim and Kadim in the northern West Bank — would be re-established after being dismantled two decades ago.
Five of the 19 settlements already existed but had not previously been granted legal status under Israeli law, the statement said.
While all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory are considered illegal under international law, some wildcat outposts are also illegal in the eyes of the Israeli government.
Many of these, however, are later legalized by Israeli authorities, fueling fears about the possible annexation of the territory.
US President Donald Trump has warned Israel about annexing the West Bank.
“Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened,” Trump said in a recent interview to Time magazine.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and violence there has soared since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 1,027 Palestinians in the West Bank — both militants and civilians — since the start of the fighting in Gaza, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.
At least 44 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations during the same period, according to Israeli data.
Israel’s security cabinet approves 19 new settlements in West Bank
https://arab.news/bwenq
Israel’s security cabinet approves 19 new settlements in West Bank
- Israel’s security cabinet approved the establishment of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, bringing the total number approved over the past three years to 69, an official statement said Sun
Battered by Gaza war, Israel’s tech sector in recovery mode
- “High-tech companies had to overcome massive staffing cuts, because 15 to 20 percent of employees, and sometimes more, were called up” to the front as reservists, IIA director Dror Bin told
JERUSALEM: Israel’s vital tech sector, dragged down by the war in Gaza, is showing early signs of recovery, buoyed by a surge in defense innovation and fresh investment momentum.
Cutting-edge technologies represent 17 percent of the country’s GDP, 11.5 percent of jobs and 57 percent of exports, according to the latest available data from the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA), published in September 2025.
But like the rest of the economy, the sector was not spared the knock-on effects of the war, which began in October 2023 and led to staffing shortages and skittishness from would-be backers.
Now, with a ceasefire largely holding in Gaza since October, Israel’s appeal is gradually returning, as illustrated in mid-December, when US chip giant Nvidia announced it would create a massive research and development center in the north that could host up to 10,000 employees.
“Investors are coming to Israel nonstop,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time.
After the war, the recovery can’t come soon enough.
“High-tech companies had to overcome massive staffing cuts, because 15 to 20 percent of employees, and sometimes more, were called up” to the front as reservists, IIA director Dror Bin told AFP.
To make matters worse, in late 2023 and 2024, “air traffic, a crucial element of this globalized sector, was suspended, and foreign investors froze everything while waiting to see what would happen,” he added.
The war also sparked a brain drain in Israel.
Between October 2023 and July 2024, about 8,300 employees in advanced technologies left the country for a year or more, according to an IIA report published in April 2025.
The figure represents around 2.1 percent of the sector’s workforce.
The report did not specify how many employees left Israel to work for foreign companies versus Israeli firms based abroad, or how many have since returned to Israel.
- Rise in defense startups -
In 2023, the tech sector far outpaced GDP growth, increasing by 13.7 percent compared to 1.8 percent for GDP.
But the sector’s output stagnated in 2024 and 2025, according to IIA figures.
Industry professionals now believe the industry is turning a corner.
Israeli high-tech companies raised $15.6 billion in private funding in 2025, up from $12.2 billion in 2024, according to preliminary figures published in December by Startup Nation Central (SNC), a non-profit organization that promotes Israeli innovation.
Deep tech — innovation based on major scientific or engineering advances such as artificial intelligence, biotech and quantum computing — returned in 2025 to its pre-2021 levels, according to the IIA.
The year 2021 is considered a historic peak for Israeli tech.
The past two years have also seen a surge in Israeli defense technologies, with the military engaged on several fronts from Lebanon and Syria to Iran, Yemen, Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Between July 2024 and April 2025, the number of startups in the defense sector nearly doubled, from 160 to 312, according to SNC.
Of the more than 300 emerging companies collaborating with the research and development department of Israel’s defense ministry, “over 130 joined our operations during the war,” Director General Amir Baram said in December.
Until then, the ministry had primarily sourced from Israel’s large defense firms, said Menahem Landau, head of Caveret Ventures, a defense tech investment company.
But he said the war pushed the ministry “to accept products that were not necessarily fully finished and tested, coming from startups.”
“Defense-related technologies have replaced cybersecurity as the most in-demand high-tech sector,” the reserve lieutenant colonel explained.
“Not only in Israel but worldwide, due to the war between Russia and Ukraine and tensions with China.”
