Description

Photo:
Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh. Published by Maan News

The West Bank settlement of Peduel. Credit: Ofer Vaknin. Published by Haaretz

The entrance to the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. Published by Haaretz
___

Ramallah - Ma'an - Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said that the Israeli government's approval of the secret establishment of 22 new settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as reported by Israeli media this evening, constitutes a dangerous escalation and a challenge to international legitimacy and international law. It is an Israeli attempt to continue dragging the region into a cycle of violence and instability.

Abu Rudeineh added that all settlement activity is illegal, stressing that this condemned and rejected decision explicitly violates all international legitimacy resolutions and international law, particularly UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which deemed all settlement activity in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, illegal and illegitimate under international law.

He continued, "The extreme right-wing government must stop destabilizing the West Bank and the entire region by insisting on continuing its criminal aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and its settlement expansion and aggression in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem."

Abu Rudeineh said: "We call on the US administration to intervene seriously and immediately to stop this Israeli tampering with the fate of the entire region before it's too late, and to compel it to abide by international law and cease its war across all Palestinian territory, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem."
____

Editorial | Don't Look Away: Israel's Annexation of the West Bank Is Already Here

Haaretz Editorial
Apr 22, 2025

At a time when the Israeli right has adopted the "Trump vision" of transferring two million Gazans for the sake of creating an American Riviera and the Israel Defense Forces is preparing the ground there for a supposedly temporary extended stay on which the infrastructure of renewed settlement is being established, annexation of the West Bank is no longer moving at a snail's pace. It has risen to its feet and is proceeding apace.

The annexation is already here. By the time it is formally declared, it will already be too late to stop it – the process will have been completed.

That is the modus operandi of the settlers and the government – to do everything short of a formal declaration, knowing that no one is paying attention and that no one really cares.

What is happening on the ground is clear to anyone who travels in the West Bank and is even more clear to those following the activities of Bezalel Smotrich and other members of the coalition. At the heart of the revolution, now in full swing, is a drastic increase in the number of building permits in settlements, the transfer of West Bank administration from the army to the settlers and their supporters, designation of state land at a dizzying pace and draconian enforcement against illegal Palestinian construction.

Many of these take place under the radar because, in theory, they involve bureaucratic steps – the establishment of the settlement administration, the transfer of authority out of the army's Civil Administration, passage of a law that will make it easier for Jews to buy West Bank land and steps aimed at strengthening the settlements economically.

The latter is being accomplished, among other things, by a law that will entitle the settlements to municipal tax revenues from industrial and commercial districts inside Israel proper, and one that will deem the South Hebron Hill settlements a part of the Negev. All are aimed at the single goal of ensuring the settlements get more government money.

The fact that these bills have not yet been approved by the Knesset has not prevented the coalition from pouring millions of shekels into the settlements in various ways. Such steps are no longer done in secret, but proudly and openly – for example, when Smotrich and Orit Strock recently participated in a ceremony creating a team of rangers to serve the South Hebron Hill farm outposts.

It is no coincidence that the farm outposts throughout the West Bank also play an important role in the actual annexation by working to empty Area C of Palestinians and push them into the cities.

The settlers in the Knesset and the settlers in the territories are engaged in a pincer movement, taking over the state institutions most relevant to the West Bank, shifting budgets and giving increasing legitimacy to the hilltop youth, those who are actually doing the work of expulsion on the ground. As such, when the official annexation comes, there will be as few Palestinians as possible there.

We must not look away. We must not think that annexation is merely hypothetical. We must look directly at the reality on the ground. When we do, we see that annexation is all but here and that the means of making it happen are being prepared.

The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.
______

Israel Approves Construction Of 22 New Colonies In West Bank

by IMEMC News
May 28, 2025

The Israeli “Security Cabinet” has secretly approved the construction of 22 new colonies in the occupied West Bank, including the reconstruction of Homesh and Sanur, two colonies previously dismantled under Israel’s 2005 disengagement plan.

This decision, initiated by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, was made two weeks ago and includes settlements across Mateh Binyamin, the Dead Sea region, the Jordan Valley, and Mount Hebron. The names of the colonies remain temporary.

It is worth mentioning that Mateh Binyamin Regional Council is a regional council governing 47 illegal Israeli colonies and colonist outposts across the occupied West Bank.

Additionally, the Cabinet approved a proposal to resume Israeli land registration procedures in Area C (%62 of the occupied West Bank), aiming to counter Palestinian land registration efforts, which Israel claims are “unauthorized.”

The resolution states that Palestinian land registration documents, maps, and approvals will hold “no legal status in Israel,” and that army has been instructed to block Palestinian land registration activities.

Israeli “Strategic Affairs” Minister Ron Dermer has reportedly proposed applying Israeli sovereignty over 65% of the West Bank in what he called “response to European recognition of a Palestinian state, particularly by France.”

According to reports, Yisrael Gantz, head of the West Bank “Settlements Council,” presented a plan to Trump administration officials and U.S. defense and foreign ministry representatives, advocating for Israeli control over 65% of the West Bank, while Palestinians would be confined to 20 isolated enclaves without political autonomy.

The plan suggests that Israeli law would be enforced across 65% of the West Bank, “preventing Palestinians from forming a unified national entity.”

Gantz reportedly argued that U.S. approval is essential to blocking the establishment of a Palestinian state, linking the proposal to French President Emmanuel Macron’s push for Palestinian recognition.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has warned major world powers that unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state “would prompt Israel to impose sovereignty over the West Bank.”

Sa’ar told British and French officials that any unilateral move against Israel would be met with “Israeli countermeasures.”

These developments come ahead of an international conference scheduled for June 17-20 in New York, led by France and Saudi Arabia, aimed at securing recognition of a Palestinian state.

Israel has strongly opposed Macron’s initiative, accusing him of “undermining moral values in light of the October 7 attacks.”

While the United States has declined to participate, key European nations, including Germany, have rejected the French proposal, while Spain and Malta have expressed support.

On the ground, Israeli soldiers and paramilitary colonizers have escalated their invasions and violations across the occupied West Bank, with dozens of colonizers also attacking Palestinian homes, uprooting lands, burning cars and torching farmlands, while Israeli occupation soldiers uprooted trees.

All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
____

Israel Launches PR Initiative to Boost Global 'Legitimization' of West Bank Settlements

The Israeli Diaspora Ministry's 3 million shekel campaign will bring public figures and influencers from across Europe, the U.S. and Latin America to tour Israeli settlements in the West Bank and meet with residents

Linda Dayan for Haaretz
May 7, 2025

Israel's Diaspora Ministry announced on Wednesday that it is launching a new global public relations initiative to "bolster the legitimization of settlements" in the international arena.

The project includes bringing delegations of governmental figures, journalists and influencers from Europe, the United States and Latin America to tour settlements and meet residents, as well as sending delegations abroad.

Its purpose is to "change the international perception of settlements and to provide accessibility to the reality on the ground," the ministry's announcement says. The move is intended to strengthen the legitimacy of settlements in the West Bank, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.

In practice, the government is taking over the Samaria Regional Council's own public relations department, making it an official state initiative and giving it a budget of 3 million shekels (about $836,000).

The announcement says that settlements that would like to participate in the initiative will be awarded up to 1 million shekels if they have experience hosting international delegations, and settlements that want to begin hosting such tours can be granted up to 250,000 shekels for "developing their public relations capabilities."

The Samaria Regional Council is a municipal government for Jewish settlements in the northern West Bank, using the biblical term for the region. The council's head, Yossi Dagan, is leading the program.

Prior to adoption by the government, the public relations department "made prominent achievements in the international arena," according to the Diaspora Ministry, including establishing parliamentary friendship groups for the Samaria region in the European Parliament and U.S. Congress, and forging ties with thought leaders and legislators around the world.

The announcement says official government recognition of the regional council's public relations work "is a clear expression of the Diaspora Ministry's policies" – to establish the settlements "as a significant hasbara front, and to deal with attempts to undermine Israel's right to existence in the international arena."

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said of the initiative: "The decision to adopt Samaria's public relations program as an official tool of Israeli hasbara is an unequivocal statement: Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] are not just the historic heart of our homeland, but also a central front for the struggle to delegitimize Israel."

The ministry's message is clear, he said: "We are strengthening this front, not retreating from it. The Diaspora Ministry will continue to lead the battle over public perception out of its deep obligation to the values of truth, justice and the unbreakable connection between the people of Israel and our land."