Israel approves nearly 800 housing units in three West Bank settlements

Israel has given final approval for 764 housing units to be built in three settlements in the occupied West Bank, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Wednesday.

The ultra-nationalist Smotrich, who opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, said that since the beginning of his term in late 2022, some 51,370 housing units have been approved by the government’s Higher Planning Council in the West Bank, territory Palestinians seek for a future state.

“We continue the revolution,” Smotrich said in a statement, adding the latest approval of housing units “is part of a clear strategic process of strengthening the settlements and ensuring continuity of life, security, and growth … and genuine concern for the future of the State of Israel.”

The units will be spread out between Hashmonaim, just over the Green Line in central Israel, and Givat Zeev and Beitar Illit near Jerusalem.

Most world powers deem Israel’s settlements – on land it captured in a 1967 war – as illegal and numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions have called on Israel to halt all settlement activity.

“For us, all the settlements are illegal…and they are contrary to all the resolutions of international legitimacy,” Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, told Reuters.

Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians have been on the rise. At least 264 attacks in the West Bank against Palestinians were reported in October, the biggest monthly total since U.N. officials began tracking such incidents in 2006, according to a U.N. report.

Israeli settlements expand by record amount: UN rights chief

Earlier in 2024 the U.N. human rights chief cautioned that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories have expanded by a record amount and risk eliminating any practical possibly of a Palestinian state.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said that the growth of Israeli settlements amounted to the transfer by Israel of its own population, which he reiterated was a war crime.