Published On 7/7/2026
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Last update: 23:19 (Mecca time)
Under the pretext of building without a permit, the Israeli occupation continues to demolish Palestinian homes in areas of the West Bank and seize their lands, in conjunction with continuing its settlement project by building new outposts.
Palestinian sources confirm that Israeli attacks on Palestinian property are continuing in the town of Shuqba, west of Ramallah, and lands have been razed and buildings converted into military barracks in the village of Madama, south of Nablus.
The Israeli “Peace Now” movement documented in a new report a series of measures and decisions taken by the Israeli government to enhance settlement in the West Bank, noting the acceleration of the pace of annexation of the West Bank over more than 3 years.
The report shows that Israeli measures were determined through the following stages:
February 2023
The Israeli government decided to establish 9 settlements by settling the status of 10 settlement outposts.
June 2023
The Israeli government changed the settlement planning mechanism and eliminated the need for the Minister of Defense’s approval at every stage of approving plans.
July 2024
The Israeli government decided to convert 5 settlement outposts into settlements before the Supreme Planning Council began holding weekly meetings in November of the same year to speed up the approval of construction plans.
March 2025
It was approved to transform 13 settlement neighborhoods into independent settlements.
May 2025
Announcing the establishment of 22 new settlements
August 2025
The occupation government finally approved plans to build 3,400 settlement units in the “E1” area before publishing a tender for their construction in December. In the same month, he also decided to establish 19 new settlements.
March 2026
The occupation government approves the establishment of 34 additional settlements.
“settler revolution”
In his reading of the accelerating pace of settlement in the West Bank, settlement affairs expert Saher Khaliliyeh told Al Jazeera that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government acknowledged itself that it came under the slogan of a “settlement revolution,” and in fact it amended the laws that allowed the establishment of hundreds of settlement outposts and the perpetuation of settlement construction.
The settlement outposts have increased to more than 360 outposts, which together with the settlements control more than one million and 100 thousand dunams, that is, more than 22% of the area of the West Bank.
The occupation government also changed the laws and manipulated them, giving powers to the Settlements Council, and accordingly 112,000 settlement units were approved within 3 years, more than 78,000 settlement units in the West Bank and more than 34,000 units in occupied Jerusalem.
The expert on settlement affairs warned that what the occupation is doing is an integrated project, because the construction of settlement units or the legalization of settlement outposts is accompanied by the expansion and extension of the bypass road network and the strengthening of control over areas called “C,” of which the Settlement Council now controls about 80% of its area.
He added that the Settlements Council and the settlers are planning to establish an “independent self-governing entity for the settlers in the West Bank,” an entity that has all the powers of expansion and urbanization, and has economic capabilities, and they have built a special army for the settlers.
The settler army is implementing settlement policies in the West Bank. They lead soldiers in attacks on Palestinians, cutting trees, confiscating lands, and demolishing agricultural and pastoral facilities in the West Bank.
The Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, confirmed in a previous intervention with Al Jazeera that the goal of the current Israeli government is annexation and Judaization, and it believes that there is a historic opportunity to implement its project, and therefore it uses settler gangs and settler organizations to terrorize the Palestinians.
Undermining the two-state solution
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is leading the settlement project, and he said – in a previous interview with the newspaper “Israel Hayom” – that the project implemented by the current government has created a “revolution” in the West Bank.
Smotrich pointed out that the goal is to build geographical continuity between the Israeli settlements, in exchange for dividing the Palestinian geographical extension into separate areas, stressing that the government is racing against time to legalize the conditions of the largest possible number of settlement outposts and farms before any future elections, with the aim of granting them a legal status that will make their evacuation more difficult for any future government that may adopt a different political orientation.
In an extensive report, Haaretz newspaper believed that what the West Bank is witnessing goes beyond mere settlement expansion, and represents an organized project to redraw the political and geographical map of the region, leading to undermining the possibility of implementing the two-state solution.
It is noteworthy that the United Nations Human Rights Office warned earlier that Israeli settlement plans and military operations in the West Bank threaten to undermine the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state and the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
