Israel settlements drive heightens Palestinian land angst

Palestinian officials have condemned a dramatic new settlement drive by Israel in the occupied West Bank which includes retroactively authorising three outposts.

The move is set to further stoke tensions in the territory which has seen a surge in violence since the war in Gaza began on 7 October.

Palestinians claim the West Bank as part of their hoped-for future state. Settlements are widely seen as illegal under international law although Israel disagrees.

The three unauthorised outposts that have now been legalised under Israeli law were described as new neighbourhoods of existing settlements. They are in sensitive areas in the Jordan Valley and near the southern city of Hebron.

In addition, the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now said on Thursday that Israeli authorities had approved or advanced plans for 5,295 homes in dozens of settlements.

It also emerged this week that the Israeli government’s Higher Planning Council had approved the largest seizure of West Bank land in over three decades.

Some 12,700 dunams (5 sq miles) has been seized in the Jordan Valley and declared as Israeli state land. This year has marked a peak in the extent of declarations of state land with a total of 23,700 dunams affected.

The Palestinian president’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeinah, said the new announcements confirmed that Israel’s “extremist government is bound by the right-wing policy of war and settlement”.

He said the latest steps would not “achieve security and peace for anyone” and were meant to prevent the establishment of a geographically contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.

Last week, Israel’s security cabinet decided to authorise retroactively five settlement outposts built without official government approval.

The UN, the UK and other countries denounced the move as undermining hopes for the two-state solution - the internationally approved formula for peace that would see the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

“Israel must halt its illegal settlement expansion and hold to account those responsible for extremist settler violence,” the British Foreign Office said.

“The UK’s priority is to bring the Gaza conflict to a sustainable end as quickly as possible and ensure a lasting peace in the Middle East, through an irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution.”

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment on the overall strategy for the West Bank.

However, the far-right Israeli minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in a West Bank settlement, has welcomed the recent steps. "We are building the good land and thwarting the establishment of a Palestinian state," he said Wednesday on social media platform X.

Not counting annexed east Jerusalem, about half a million settlers live in the West Bank alongside three million Palestinians. Last year, Mr Smotrich instructed government departments to prepare to double the number of settlers to one million.

Since Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War, successive Israeli administrations have allowed settlements to grow. However, expansion has risen sharply since Mr Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the head of a hardline, pro-settler governing coalition.

Last month, Peace Now released the recording of an address by Mr Smotrich to his Religious Zionism party, in which he proposes transferring the management of settlements from military to civilian officials, building a separate road bypass system for settlers, expanding farming outposts and cracking down on unauthorised Palestinian construction.

Peace Now warned that the plan would irreversibly change the way the West Bank was governed and lead to “de facto annexation”.