TEL AVIV (Dispatches) – The occupying regime of Israel approved 22 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank on Thursday as part of its ongoing campaign to expropriate, colonize, and annex Palestinian lands.
War minister Israel Katz stated, “We will establish 22 new settlements in the West Bank as a strategic step to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.”
Katz added that the settlement decision “strengthens our hold on Judea and Samaria,” using the Zionist term for the occupied West Bank.
Writing on X, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich called the decision historic. “The next step – sovereignty!” he stated, referring to annexing the West Bank.
Smotrich earlier stated that Israel was expanding its “borders” as part of the “Greater Israel” project.
Israeli media cited the war ministry as saying that among the new settlements, existing “outposts” would be “legalized”, and new settlements would also be built.
Israeli outposts and settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law, which bars the conquest of new territory through war. Israel occupied the West Bank and East Al-Quds during the Six-Day War in 1967, and since then has been systematically stealing Palestinian land to build Jewish settlements there.
Around 700,000 Zionist settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Al-Quds.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, urged the U.S. government to intervene and condemned efforts to prevent a Palestinian state.
“This extremist Israeli government is trying by all means to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” he said.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the decision is part of “the war led by Netanyahu against the Palestinian people,”