The Israeli government has approved 5,295 new housing units in a series of illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank, as well as recognizing three new settlement outposts in the Palestinian territory, according to a watchdog group.
Israeli NGO Peace Now reported the move on Thursday, a day after the group said the Israeli government approved the largest land seizure in the West Bank in more than three decades.
The construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory is illegal under international law and the expansion of settlements is seen as a major obstacle to the viability of a future Palestinian state.
The new approvals are all but guaranteed to further raise tensions as Palestinians across the occupied West Bank face increasing attacks from Israeli forces and settlers amid Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.
“Our government continues to change the rules of the game in the occupied West Bank, leading to irreversible damage,” Peace Now said in a statement released on Thursday, in which it condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich .
Smotrich, himself a settler, oversaw a major escalation in settler expansion under Netanyahu’s leadership. He is also among the far-right politicians the prime minister has come to rely on for political survival.
“This annexationist government seriously undermines the security and future of both Israelis and Palestinians, and the cost of this recklessness will be paid for generations to come,” said Peace Now, which also condemned the appointment of Smotrich’s key allies to the body that approves the settlements. .
More than 500,000 Israeli citizens live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank. Its existence continues to be a major obstacle to the now-interrupted plans outlined in the Oslo Accords, which promised the gradual transfer of areas controlled by Israel to the Palestinians.
Peace Now said the last approved settlements, all of which have existed since the late 2010s as unofficial outposts, were Givat Hanan, Kedem Arava and Machane Gadi in the Jordan Valley.
Israel’s Higher Planning Council (HPC) justified the approval by saying that the outposts were existing “neighborhoods” of existing settlements, despite being physically separated from those settlements, the group said.
The watchdog added that the new settlements were distinct from five other new settlements approved by the cabinet last week.
‘Totally unacceptable’
The approval of the new settlements comes just a day after Peace Now reported that Israel had declared as its roughly 23.7 square kilometers (9.15 square miles) of land in the occupied West Bank so far this year, a rate the group said to be unprecedented.
This included approving the seizure of 12.7 square kilometers (4.9 square miles) of land in the Jordan Valley late last month.
On Thursday, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide called the latest actions “totally unacceptable”.
“Norway condemns these decisions and we call on the Government of Israel to reverse them immediately,” he said in a statement, in which he condemned the government’s policy of “expropriation, land confiscation and the establishment of illegal settlements.”
Norway joined Spain and Ireland in May, becoming the last countries to formally recognize a Palestinian state.
Settlements have also been a rare area where the US has been willing to directly confront its “battleship” ally Israel, although critics have said that Washington has neglected to use the levers at its disposal to pressure Israel.
On Tuesday, US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said that “unilateral actions such as expanding settlements and legalizing outposts” were “detrimental to a two-state solution.”
“Therefore, we will continue to use the tools at our disposal to expose and promote accountability for those who threaten peace and stability in the region,” he said.
Both military and Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank has increased since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza. Around three million Palestinians in the territory are subject to Israeli military rule.
Since October, at least 553 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, with 9,510 detained, according to Palestinian authorities.
At least 38,011 people have been killed in Israel’s war in Gaza since October, according to Palestinian authorities.
Israel launched the assault on Gaza after Hamas led an assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing at least 1,139 people, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on Israeli statistics.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
