Israel approves new West Bank settlements
What happened
Israel’s Cabinet has approved 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Sunday. The decision — approved Dec. 11 but classified until now, according to Smotrich’s office — brings the number of Jewish West Bank settlements approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government to 69, a nearly 50% increase since 2022.
Who said what
The settlements are “widely considered illegal under international law,” The Associated Press said, and Israel’s “construction binge” in the West Bank “further threatens the possibility” of a two-state solution. Smotrich’s stated goal is “blocking the establishment of a Palestinian state,” the BBC said, and surging violence in the West Bank is “heightening fears that settlement expansion could entrench Israel’s occupation.”
The “unrelenting violent campaign” by Israeli settlers includes “brutal harassment, beatings, even killings,” The New York Times said, while the Israeli military “forces Palestinians to evacuate or orders the destruction of their homes once settlers drive them to flee.” Israel’s military said Sunday it is reviewing the shooting death Saturday of a 16-year-old boy “suspected of hurling a block” at soldiers in the West Bank town of Qabatiya. Video of the incident showed an Israeli soldier shooting the youth at “point blank range,” CNN said, and “nothing appears to be thrown from the alley the Palestinian teenager comes from.”
What next?
The “Israeli onslaught has all but vanquished a free Palestinian existence in the West Bank,” the Times said, and the “desperation among Palestinian villagers and farmers as they watch the takeover of their lands at a pace never seen before” is exacerbated by “fear that the changes are already becoming irreversible.”