Israeli cabinet 'secretly approves record number' of new West Bank settlements

Israel’s cabinet has secretly approved a record number of new settlements in the occupied West Bank, according to the Israeli news channel i24NEWS.

Amid the war on Iran, the government ratified 34 new settlements in a single decision – more than half the total approved during the previous record-setting year of 2025.

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are widely regarded as illegal under international law.

Sources told i24NEWS that the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, who attended the meeting, did not explicitly oppose the plan but expressed concerns over limited personnel and suggested phasing the rollout to a smaller number of sites at a time.

The cabinet initially kept the decision classified, but details were leaked on Thursday with approval from the censor.

These 34 new settlements come on top of 68 already approved by the current government since 2022, alongside nearly 200 unauthorised outposts established during the same period.

Although the exact locations have not yet been released, some of the new settlements appear to be in areas where no settlements have previously existed, including zones rarely accessed even by the Israeli army.

This represents a significant acceleration in West Bank settlement expansion, which has risen sharply since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza in 2023.

'This government at large does not hide its intentions to destroy the possibilities of a Palestinian state'

 – Lior Amihai, Peace Now executive director

According to the peace advocacy group Peace Now, 54 settlements were approved by the Israeli government last year – an all-time high, breaking the previous record of nine in 2023. Of these, 26 were unauthorised outposts retroactively legalised by the government.

The report also noted a surge in unauthorised outposts, reaching 86 – almost 40 percent higher than the previous year, averaging one to two new outposts per week.

A United Nations report released on 17 March recorded that more than 36,000 Palestinians were displaced in the West Bank between November 2024 and October 2025, amid spiking settler attacks.

During the same period, 1,732 incidents of settler violence causing casualties or property damage were documented – up by 25 percent from the previous year.

The Israeli ‘mission’

This latest move represents the largest single settlement authorisation to pass through an Israeli cabinet.

Lior Amihai, executive director of Peace Now, told Middle East Eye that this was "part of their mission".

“They're not hiding it. They’re actually very clear about it, and this is the de facto annexation elements that they’re doing, taking over the territories and ethnic cleansing the Palestinians from Area C,” Amihai explained, referring to the area of the West Bank fully controlled by Israel.

Despite the initial secrecy, likely intended to avoid international scrutiny amid US–Israel tensions over the war in Iran, Amihai said: “This government at large does not hide its intentions to destroy the possibilities of a Palestinian state and peace between Israelis and the Palestinians." 

The announcement comes amid a surge in settler violence. Recent weeks have seen dozens of Israeli settlers carry out arson attacks against Palestinians, including the torching of a clinic, shooting at civilians, and vandalising a school with graffiti reading “Death to Arabs”.

According to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry data, at least 1,050 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October 2023 by Israeli forces or settlers, including six since the start of March.