Cabinet legalizes 19 West Bank outposts, including 2 vacated in 2005 disengagement

Move unanimously approved, US was notified ahead of time, report says; PA slams ‘annexation, apartheid and complete Judaization of Palestinian land’

The cabinet voted Thursday to grant official status to 19 illegal outposts in the West Bank, including two that were vacated 20 years ago under the Disengagement Plan, according to media and settlement groups.

According to Ynet and Channel 14, the unanimous vote was based on a proposal by Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also in charge of the Defense Ministry’s settlement directorate. Ynet reported that Washington was briefed on the move ahead of time.

Mu’ayyan Sa’ban, head of the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, said the decision was a “dangerous escalation” and accused Israel of seeking to “entrench annexation, apartheid and complete Judaization of Palestinian land.”

“The decision by the so-called ‘Israeli occupation cabinet’ to establish and settle 19 new colonies across the West Bank constitutes the latest step in a race to annihilate Palestinian geography for the sake of settler colonialism,” said Sha’aban, who holds the rank of minister in the PA.

The move came after the Interior Ministry on Sunday announced the final legalization of eight other outposts, with Smotrich, himself a settler, hailing the move for “promoting de facto sovereignty in Judea and Samaria” — the biblical name for the West Bank — and preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state there.

Ynet and Channel 14 said the outposts legalized by the cabinet late Thursday were Kida, Esh Kodesh, Givat Harel, Mishol, Kochav Hashachar-north, Ganim, Kadim, Shalem, Har Bezek, Reihanit, Rosh Ha’ayin-east, Tammun, Pnei Kedem, Yatziv, Ya’ar El Keren, Allenby, Yitav-west and Nahal Doron.

About half of the outposts are located deep inside the West Bank, while the others are dispersed more or less evenly along the Green Line that separates the area from Israel, according to a map published by Channel 14.

At least one of the outposts, Givat Harel, near Ramallah, was already announced as legalized in February 2023. The reason for the repetition was unclear.

Some of the outposts have been standing for a relatively long time, the network noted. For example, Givat Harel was established in 1998, and nearby Esh Kodesh in 2000, according to settlement watchdog Peace Now.

On the other hand, right-wing outlets reported as late as 2024 that settler groups were still planning to rebuild Kadim and Ganim, two northern West Bank outposts vacated under the 2005 disengagement that mainly affected Gaza Strip settlements.

Settlement groups congratulated Smotrich on the move to legalize the 19 outposts, and especially the two that were vacated in 2005.

“We congratulate Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and minister in the Defense Ministry, for the impressive achievement of approving 19 new settlements,” said settlement advocacy group Nachala, expressing “particular joy at the decision to return to Ganim and Kadim in northern Samaria… redressing a great injustice.”

Samaria Regional Council chief Yossi Dagan also said he was “thankful to Minister Bezalel Smotrich for leading the government decision, and excited with all the people of Israel and residents of Samaria about the return home 20 years later.”

Dagan vowed to keep building for Jews until there were “a million settlers” in the West Bank, roughly double the number of settlers there today, according to the Yesha Council, a settlement umbrella group. By contrast, about 2.7 million Palestinians live in the West Bank.

The international community — with the notable exception of the US under President Donald Trump — considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law. Israel, which conquered the area in the June 1967 Six Day War, disputes that position, citing historic ties to the region and a security imperative in holding on to it.

Settlements growing at highest rate on record, UN says

With the 19 outposts legalized on Thursday, the current government has approved for construction or retroactively legalized close to 70 new settlements.

Prior to the tenure of the current administration, which began in late 2022, virtually no new settlements had been approved or outposts legalized since the late 1990s.

Smotrich has included in the state budget approved by the cabinet last week a plan to spend about NIS 2.7 billion ($841 million) over five years on the expansion of settlements and legalization of outposts that were built without government permits. The plan was opposed by a plurality of respondents in a poll by Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site.

The expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank is currently at its highest rate since at least 2017, when the United Nations began tracking such data, according to a report by the UN chief seen by AFP on Friday.

In 2025, “plans for nearly 47,390 housing units were advanced, approved, or tendered, compared with some 26,170 in 2024,” the report said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the “relentless” expansion, saying 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.”

“These figures represent a sharp increase compared to previous years,” he added, 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,” Gutteres said.

Guterres also condemned the “continued escalation of violence and tensions in the occupied West Bank,” pointing out that IDF counter-terrorism operations in the northern West Bank had killed a “high number” of people, displaced residents and destroyed homes and other infrastructure.

Violence in the West Bank has soared since the Hamas attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war in October 2023.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers since the war started, according to the PA health ministry. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops, or terrorists carrying out attacks.

During the same period, 63 civilians and Israeli security personnel have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another eight members of the security forces were killed in clashes during raids in Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

The same period has also seen a major surge in attacks by settler extremists on Palestinians and their property across the West Bank. The IDF has recorded more than 752 incidents of nationalistic crime and settler violence since the start of the year. The total for 2024 was 675 incidents.

Settler attacks on Palestinians reached their highest recorded levels in October, during the Palestinian olive harvest season, with settlers carrying out at least 264 attacks, according to the United Nations.