PA accuses Israel of ‘tightening colonial control’ over West Bank with new settlements

Ramallah says Smotrich’s decision to approve 19 settlements across the West Bank is the latest policy to undermine ‘inalienable rights of the Palestinian people’

The Palestinian Authority on Tuesday condemned Israel’s recent approval of 19 settlements in the West Bank, accusing Israel of tightening its control over land the Palestinians claim for a future state.

On Sunday, 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 Authority 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.

Before the government took office at the end of 2022, virtually no new settlements had been approved or outposts legalized since the late 1990s.

Excluding East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel in 1967, more than 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, along with about three million Palestinian residents.

The newly recognized settlements are Kida, Esh Kodesh, Givat Harel, Mishol, Kochav Hashachar-North, Nof Gilad, Ganim, Kadim, Shalem, Har Bezek, Reihanit, Rosh Ha’ayin-East, Tammun, P’nei 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 territory from Israel.

Smotrich’s office said the 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. Some of the outposts had been in place for decades. For example, Givat Harel was established in 1998, and nearby Esh Kodesh in 2000, according to settlement watchdog Peace Now.

Ganim and Kadim were evacuated under the terms of the 2005 Disengagement, in which Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza and four settlements in the northern Samaria district of the West Bank. The other two, Homesh and Sa Nur, were formally reestablished in May this year.

The government passed legislation in March 2023, annulling the clauses of the legislation that led to the evacuation of those four settlements, paving the way for their reestablishment.

Israel’s decision came days after the United Nations said the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank had reached its highest level since at least 2017.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law, although Israel, which conquered the area in the 1967 Six Day War, disputes that position, citing historic ties to the region and a security imperative in holding on to it.

US President Donald Trump recently warned that Israel “would lose all of its support from the United States” if it annexed the West Bank.

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.