RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian Authority condemned on Tuesday Israel’s recent approval of 19 settlements in the occupied West Bank, accusing it of tightening its control over Palestinian land.
On Sunday, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the authorities had greenlit the settlements, saying the move was aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian foreign ministry decried the approval as a “dangerous step aimed at tightening colonial control over the entirety of Palestinian land,” calling it a continuation of “apartheid, settlement, and annexation policies that undermine the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.”
“The decision provides political cover for accelerating the plunder of Palestinian lands, expanding settlement infrastructure... alongside an escalating pace of settler terrorism against members of our people and their properties,” it said in a statement.
The latest move brings the total number of settlements approved over the past three years to 69, Smotrich’s office said.
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 were 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.
Israel’s decision came days after the United Nations said the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank — all of which are illegal under international law — had reached its highest level since at least 2017.
US President Donald Trump recently warned that Israel “would lose all of its support from the United States” if it annexed the West Bank.
Israel has occupied the territory since 1967, and violence there has surged following the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023 with Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 1,028 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.