Israel’s Cabinet approved 19 new settlements in the West Bank earlier this month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Sunday. Smotrich, a settler himself, said the action was taken to block the establishment of a Palestinian state, the BBC reported.
The latest settlements were OK’d by the Cabinet on Dec. 11 but the development was classified until now.
Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian land are considered illegal under international law. Per Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
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Among the settlements approved by the Cabinet are Kadim and Ganim, The Associated Press reported. These settlements, along with two others, were initially dismantled in 2005.
Sen. Bernie Sanders,I-Vt., responded to a New York Times article about the expansion of Israeli settlements, saying on X Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “extremist government is supporting the violent annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank.”
“This is illegal and immoral, and decades of American silence have enabled it. NO MORE MILITARY AID FOR NETANYAHU,” Sanders said.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned Israel’s “relentless” settlement expansion, saying it fuels tensions, restricts Palestinian access to land and threatens the viability of a sovereign Palestinian state.
“The expanding settlement footprint, including outposts, coincides with rising settler attacks, further entrenching the unlawful occupation and violating international law, undermining Palestinian self-determination,” Guterres said in a statement this week.
There has been an increased number of attacks against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza in 2023, and thousands have been displaced by violence. In October, during the region’s olive harvest, 260 settler attacks were recorded by the United Nations — the most in a single month since 2006. These attacks included arson at mosques, fires targeting homes and cars, settlers throwing stones and destroying cropland.
Two Palestinians in West Bank killed by Israeli military
Two Palestinians, one of them 16 years old, were killed by the Israeli military on Saturday night, the Health Ministry in Ramallah said. Palestinian officials identified the teenager as Rayan Muhammad Abdul Qader Abu Mualla, according to CNN. He was killed in the Al-Sab’aneh neighborhood of Qabatiya.
Israeli forces said on Telegram that Abu Mualla threw a block toward their soldiers. However, a video that was shared on social media and geolocated by CNN to Al-Sab’aneh shows the boy walking in an alley toward the soldiers, who are waiting behind a corner. Though the boy does not appear in the video to throw anything at them, the soldiers still opened fire once he reached them.
“His crime is that he was walking on the street leading to his Palestinian home and inside his Palestinian town,” the social media post read. “And as is the occupation’s habit, it kills everything Palestinian.”
During another instance in the Silat al-Harithiya area, Israeli forces said, a militant “hurled an explosive” toward soldiers, “who responded with fire” and killed him. No Israeli troops were hurt in either case.
