Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the Israeli Cabinet has approved the establishment of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank.
As part of his official role at the Defense Ministry, Smotrich managed the Administration for Settlement Affairs, a government unit established in 2023 to manage civilian affairs in West Bank settlements, including approving construction requests.
What do we know about new Israeli settlements?
The list of approvals includes two West Bank villages evacuated by Israel as part of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
The left-wing Israeli watchdog Peace Now said the newly approved settlements include areas where Israel did not already have a presence, while others are to be built in densely populated Palestinian areas as well as in places where Palestinian communities have been expelled.
“We will continue to develop, build and settle the lands of our ancestral heritage, with confidence in the justice of our path,” Smotrich posted on his X account.
According to Smotrich, the Israeli government is “preventing the establishment” of a Palestinian state by creating facts on the ground, which he calls a “terrorist state”.
Settlements growing under far-right government
The current Israeli government is considered to be the most far-right government the country has ever seen. Bezalel Smotrich is seen as one of its most prominent members.
Smotrich is one of the country’s staunchest supporters of settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are considered illegal according to international law.
The Israeli Finance Minister has also been vocal in his support for the annexation of the West Bank, a notion widely rejected, including by Israel’s strongest allies.
The establishment of Israeli settlements is often condemned internationally, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying earlier this month that such steps continue to “inflame tensions, hinder Palestinians’ access to their lands, and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous and sovereign Palestinian state.”
The expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank has reached its highest level since at least 2017, the United Nations has said.
Peace Now says that the number of settlements – often called “formalization” – has increased by about 50% under the current government due to the legalization of outposts originally established illegally by the Israeli government, from 141 in 2022 to 210 in 2025.
Addressing the settlements, UN chief Guterres said in a recent UN report: “These developments are further strengthening the illegal Israeli occupation and are in violation of international law and undermining the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.”
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, with settler violence flaring in the Palestinian territory since an October 2023 explosion in Gaza following a Hamas attack on Israel.
More than 1,000 Palestinians, including militants as well as civilians, were killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers over the past two years, according to the French AFP news agency. Israeli data shows that at least 44 Israelis were killed in the West Bank during the same period.
Edited by: Rana Taha