A plan to finance the construction of 61 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, which was put on the agenda of the Security Cabinet headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, has raised Palestinian fears of a de facto consolidation of control over the West Bank.
According to the cabinet's agenda on Thursday, ministers are expected to discuss the establishment of temporary outposts already approved in the West Bank.
The agenda did not specify whether the ministers would approve new funding.
The Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now stated that Israel is expected to approve the allocation of 1 billion shekels ($337.8 million) for the construction of new settlements and their connection to existing infrastructure in the occupied West Bank.
This plan is being promoted by Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a staunch advocate of expanding Israeli settlements, who has said he wants to bury the idea of a Palestinian state.
The funding is earmarked for roads and water infrastructure. Approximately 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank. A Palestinian official, speaking to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, said that this move "transforms settlement plans into the implementation phase and accelerates the steps to impose Israeli sovereignty over occupied Palestinian land."
This plan will fund temporary “residential” complexes, public buildings, and infrastructure even before formal planning procedures are completed, marking one of the most significant settlement expansion steps in decades.
Many of the settlements included in the proposal are located in strategically sensitive areas, including along Highway 90 in the Jordan Valley, in the hills south of Hebron, and in locations designed to create geographic contiguity between existing settlements.
According to the website, such a move undermines the prospects for a future Palestinian state.
Under the plan, the government will fund temporary housing sites, including mobile homes, public facilities, community infrastructure, and support services. The proposal will also fund development work for anticipated permanent settlements, including roads, public facilities, and other essential infrastructure. The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission stated that “the occupation government’s move to approve the allocation of nearly one billion shekels to fund the establishment of dozens of new settlement sites in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, represents a new step in accelerating the settlement project and transforming the political decisions taken by the government in recent years into entrenched facts on the ground in Palestine.”
Shaaban: Circumventing planning procedures
Minister Mu'ayyad Sha'ban, head of the commission, explained to Al-Quds Al-Arabi that "since its formation about three and a half years ago, the current Israeli government has approved the establishment of 103 new settlement sites. These include new settlements, outposts that have been legalized and regularized, and settlement neighborhoods that are being separated and transformed into independent settlements."
He added that "the danger of this decision lies not only in the size of the budget allocated, but also in the mechanisms the occupation government seeks to use to circumvent the established planning and construction procedures, even within the legal framework it has imposed on the West Bank."
He continued, "According to available information, the government intends to classify many of the planned structures as temporary, or to use military orders and legal exceptions related to projects of national importance, thus allowing construction and infrastructure work to begin before the required planning procedures are completed."
He emphasized that “this step is part of a comprehensive process that combines funding, planning, and legal and administrative procedures. Just last week, the Israeli Civil Administration issued four military directives aimed at defining and expanding the structural boundaries of a large number of settlements in the West Bank. These directives included several new settlement outposts approved by the current government, paving the way for their expansion and connection to road networks, services, and infrastructure.”
The Israeli government also recently approved an additional allocation of 152 million shekels to the Ministry of Housing to expedite planning procedures for new settlement outposts. This reflects a comprehensive government plan that provides political, financial, planning, and legal cover for an unprecedented expansion of the settlement project.
Shaaban stressed that what is happening “cannot be viewed as mere routine settlement expansion. Rather, it represents an advanced stage in reshaping Palestinian geography and imposing new realities on the ground by establishing new settlement blocs and strengthening their interconnectedness. This leads to a deepening of the system of isolation and geographical fragmentation, undermines Palestinian development opportunities, and accelerates the steps toward imposing Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory.”
He concluded by asserting that “the occupation government has effectively moved from the planning and approval phase to the intensive implementation phase of the settlement project, taking advantage of the international preoccupation with regional crises, in an attempt to impose facts that will be difficult to reverse in the future.”
Financial cover
For his part, Amir Daoud, Director General of Documentation at the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, said that the new decision “reflects the Israeli government’s shift from approving new settlement sites to consolidating and entrenching them on the ground. Since the formation of the current government, 103 new settlement sites have been approved in various forms, whether as new settlements, outposts that have begun to be legalized, or settlement neighborhoods that are being separated and transformed into independent settlements.”
In an interview with Al-Quds Al-Arabi, he emphasized that “the budget proposed today provides the necessary financial cover to transform some of these plans from political decisions and planning documents into physical realities through road construction, the extension of water and electricity networks, and the provision of the infrastructure and basic services necessary to sustain and expand the settlement presence.”
Researcher Daoud concluded that what we are witnessing today is “an advanced stage of re-engineering the Palestinian geography by creating new settlement blocs and connecting them to infrastructure networks, which reinforces the imposition of facts on the ground, undermines Palestinian development opportunities, and deepens the creeping annexation process in the West Bank, including Jerusalem.”
