Israel allows more settlements in the occupied West Bank, which caused criticism as an obstacle to the Palestinian state

Israel said on Thursday that it would establish 22 Jews Settlements In the operator West BankIncluding codifying the settlement sites that were already built without the government’s permission. Jordan and Britain criticized this step, as a senior British official described it as a “deliberate obstacle” in front of the Palestinian state.

Israel seized the West Bank, along with Gaza Strip East Jerusalem, in the Middle East war in 1967, the Palestinians want all the three regions of their future state. The majority of the international community views settlements as illegal and obstacle to resolving the old conflict.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the settlement decision “enhances our grip on Juda and Samaria”, using the biblical term for the West Bank. He said, “We prove our historical right to the land of Israel, and it constitutes an overwhelming response to Palestinian terrorism,” he said.

He added that building settlements was also “a strategic step that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that endangers Israel.”

The Israeli Slig Serridog Group said that the advertisement was more than its kind since 1993 that launched the peace process that has now ended. She said that the settlements, which deepened inside the region, “will greatly reshape the West Bank and consolidate the occupation more.”

Israel has already built more than 100 settlements across lands of about 500,000 settlers. Settlements range from small settlement outposts from the hill to entirely developed societies with residential blocks, shopping centers, factories and gardens.

The West Bank is home to 3 million Palestinians, who live under Israeli military rule with the Palestinian Authority that runs the population centers. The settlers have Israeli citizenship.

Al -Salam now said that the plans call for a license to 12 of the current settlement sites, the development of nine new settlements and a living re -classification of existing settlement as separate rives.

“The government clarifies – again and without seizure – it prefers to deepen the occupation and advance in the actual annexation of following peace,” the group said.

Israel has accelerated the construction of a settlement in recent years – a long time before the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, on Israel, which ignited the war in Gaza. The settlements restricted The Palestinians To smaller and smaller areas in the West Bank and made the possibility of creating an independent, viable country more dimension.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on this step a “dangerous escalation” and accused Israel of moving the region to a “cycle of violence and instability.”

“This extremist Israeli government is trying by all means to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” Nabil Abu Rodian, Reuters news news agency.

In a statement, Hamas accused the group that the United States and Israel identified as terrorists controlling Gaza – Israel of “accelerating efforts to Judaism, the Palestinian territories as part of a project of an explicit annexation.”

The Palestinian militant group said: “It is a shameful challenge to international will and a serious violation of international law and United Nations resolutions.”

Western ally, Jordan, also condemned this step as illegal, and said that it “undermines peace possibilities by consolidating the occupation.”

The Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that “such unilateral measures are eroding of the feasibility of the two -state solution by obstructing the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.”

The British Minister of the Middle East, Hamish Waloner, criticized the decision as a “deliberate obstacle to the Palestinian state”, saying that the settlements “expose the state to the state, and do not protect Israel.”

During his first term, President Trump’s administration erupted with contracts of US foreign policy by supporting Israel’s allegations of the lands that have been seized by force and taking steps to give legitimacy to settlements. Former President Joe Biden, like most of his predecessors, opposed the settlements, but he did not apply minimal pressure on Israel to reduce its growth.

Last year, the United Nations Court ruled that the presence of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories is illegal and called it to the end, and to build a settlement immediately.

Israel condemned the uninterrupted opinion by a committee of 15 judges from the International Court of Justice, saying that the lands are part of the historical homeland of the Jewish people.

Israel withdrew its settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, but the leading figures in the current government have called for its re -establishment, and for the largest part of the Palestinian population in the region through what they describe as voluntary migration.

The Palestinians look at plans such as a plan for their forced expulsion from their homeland, and experts say plans are likely to violate international law.

Israel is now controlling more than 70 % of Gaza, according to Yaakov Garb, a professor of environmental studies at Ben Gurion University, who examined the patterns of using Israeli -Palestinian lands for decades.

The region includes buffer areas along the border with Israel as well as the southern city of Rafah, which is now mostly uninhabited, and other large areas that Israel ordered to evacuate.

The war began with the Hamas attack on October 7, when the terrorists stormed Israel, killing about 1,200 people, most of whom were civilians, and kidnapped 251. Hamas still holds 58 hostages, about a third of them are still alive, after most of the rest were released in the ceasefire agreements. The Israeli forces saved eight and dozens of bodies.

The retaliation of Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas -running Ministry of Health in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilian victims and fighters.

AFP

He contributed to this report.