Israel Approves 19 New Settlements

Israel grants legal status to 19 West Bank settlements, including two vacated in 2005 disengagement

The move follows government approval for the construction of 764 housing units across three settlements in the West Bank.

      Ma'aleh Adumim

In a move originally proposed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz, Israel's cabinet has decided to give legal status to 19 settlements in the West Bank.

The 19 settlements include two that Israel withdrew from in 2005, evacuated under the disengagement plan overseen by former prime minister Ariel Sharon, which also led to the dismantlement of the Gush Katif settlement in the Gaza Strip. 

The Palestinian Authority condemned the move. PA Minister Mu’ayyad Sha’ban called the announcement another step to erase Palestinian geography.

      A construction site of a new residential neighborhood

Smotrich approves hundreds of housing units in multiple West Bank settlements

This comes after Israel gave final approval for 764 housing units to be built in three settlements in the West Bank, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionist Party) said. The move is part of an ongoing initiative to expand housing in the area, he said.

Hashmonaim, in the Binyamin region of the West Bank near the country's center, will receive 478 housing units.

The haredi (ultra-Orthodox) settlement of Betar Illit in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, south of Jerusalem, will receive 230 housing units.

Givat Ze’ev, also in the Binyamin region of the West Bank, northwest of Jerusalem, will receive 56 housing units.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-880465

Smotrich says the move aims to thwart a Palestinian State.

      Esh Kodesh, an Israeli outpost.

About half of the outposts are located deep inside the West Bank, while the others are dispersed more or less evenly along the Green Line that separates the territory from Israel.

"After 20 years, we are righting a painful injustice and returning Ganim and Kadim to the settlement map, alongside other important settlements throughout Judea and Samaria,” said Smotrich.

“We are stopping the establishment of a Palestinian terrorist state on the ground. We will continue to develop, build and settle in the land of our ancestors, with faith in the righteousness of the path.” 

Israel conquered the area in the 1967 Six Day War, and cites historic ties to the region and a security imperative in holding on to it.

     Smotrich

Smotrich has included in the state budget, approved by the cabinet last week, a plan to spend about NIS 2.7 billion ($841 million) over five years on the expansion of settlements and legalization of outposts that were built without government permits. 

The government has approved for construction or retroactively legalized 69 new settlements since it took office at the end of 2022, Smotrich said.

Before that, virtually no new settlements had been approved or outposts legalized since the late 1990s.

The approval increases the number of settlements in the West Bank by nearly 50 percent from 141 in 2022 to 210.

The expansion of settlements in the West Bank is at its highest rate since at least 2017.

In 2025, “plans for nearly 47,390 housing units were advanced, approved, or tendered, compared with some 26,170 in 2024.” 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/government-announces-19-new-west-bank-settlements-and-legalized-outposts/

Smotrich hailed the move for “promoting de facto sovereignty in Judea and Samaria”.

Settlement groups congratulated Smotrich on the move to legalize the 19 outposts, and especially the two that were vacated in 2005.

“We congratulate Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and minister in the Defense Ministry, for the impressive achievement of approving 19 new settlements,” said settlement advocacy group Nachala, expressing “particular joy at the decision to return to Ganim and Kadim in northern Samaria… redressing a great injustice.”

Samaria Regional Council chief Yossi Dagan also said he was “thankful to Minister Bezalel Smotrich for leading the government decision, and excited with all the people of Israel and residents of Samaria about the return home 20 years later.”

Dagan vowed to keep building for Jews until there were “a million settlers” in the West Bank, roughly double the number of settlers there today, according to the Yesha Council, a settlement umbrella group. 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/cabinet-legalizes-19-west-bank-outposts-including-two-vacated-in-2005-disengagement/