Israel OKs 13 New Settlements to 'Fracture' West Bank and Create 'Irreversible Status Quo'

Israel's Security Cabinet on Thursday approved the construction of 13 new settlements in the central West Bank, a move critics slammed as the latest effort to "fracture" Palestine and cement Israeli control over the illegally occupied territory with the goal of annexation.

Israeli media reported that the Security Cabinet, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, gave the green light to the new settler colonies in the Binyamin area, with the first phase of construction expected to start in the coming months.

The Binyamin Regional Council has argued that now is the time for building the strategically located settlements due to political and security conditions, which present an opportunity to establish facts on the ground that will make Israeli control a fait accompli.

Condemning the approval as a “dangerous escalation,” the Jerusalem Governorate—a nominally administrative division of the Palestinian Authority—asserted that Israel’s settlement plan “seeks to create new geographical realities on the ground,” and would “undermine the prospects of establishing a geographically contiguous Palestinian state.”

That, say critics—and some Israeli officials—is the point. Netanyahu last year promised that “there will be no Palestinian state," while Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and other officials have also vowed to annex some or all of the West Bank.

"Israel’s continued expansion of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory is not an isolated policy decision but part of a long-standing strategy to entrench permanent Israeli control over occupied land, further Israeli annexation of Palestinian territory, and prevent any prospects of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state," the UK-based International Center of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) said in response to the Security Cabinet vote. "The Binyamin plan represents a significant escalation of that policy, accelerating changes to the occupied territory that would create an irreversible status quo."

ICJP called the move "yet another example of the abhorrent and utter disregard of the international rules-based order by Israel" and "yet another attempt to further fragment Palestinian territory and isolate East Jerusalem from its surrounding Palestinian communities."

Madar, the Palestinian Center for Israeli Studies, said Wednesday that construction of illegal Israeli settler outposts has soared from an average of 8 per year between 2012-22 to 32 in 2023, 62 in 2024, and 86 last year.

Palestinian officials and international human rights groups have long warned that Israeli settlement expansion is destroying the possibility of a two‑state solution.

United Nations resolutions and the UN's International Court of Justice have affirmed the illegality of Israel's settlements and occupation of Palestine, the latter of which the ICJ found in 2024 is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible. The ICJ also ruled that Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to annexation, also a crime under international law.

Efforts by the Israeli government, military, and settlers to expand West Bank settlement activity have accelerated dramatically since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. With the world’s attention focused on Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, Israeli soldiers and settlers have ramped up the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the occupied territory.

Attacks on West Bank Palestinians, including pogroms carried out by mobs of settlers protected and sometimes joined by Israeli troops, have killed at least 1,105 Palestinians—at least 242 of them children—since October 2023, according to the latest report published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.