TPC Staff
The Palestine Chronicle / December 6, 2024
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last month said that 2025 will see the application of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank.
Israel has announced the confiscation of 24,000 dunams (5,930 acres) of land in the occupied West Bank, declaring it “state land” in order to expand several Jewish settlements in the area.
According to the Israeli Channel 14, cited by the Anadolu News Agency, Israeli authorities led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the move on Thursday in what is described as one of the largest land appropriations in decades.
The broadcaster noted that the decision covers nearly half of the land declared state land since the Oslo Accords in 1993, said Anadolu.
No official statement or announcement has been issued by the Israeli government or the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the decision.
Connecting illegal Jewish settlements
The channel highlighted that the Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim east of Jerusalem would be expanded by approximately 2,600 dunams (642 acres) to the south to create continuity with the illegal settlement of Kedar.
Additionally, according to the channel, settlements such as Migdal Oz and Susya in the southern West Bank and Yafit in the Jordan Valley will also be expanded, the report said.
The channel quoted Smotrich, as saying that the decision was a “historic achievement that contributes to strengthening settlement activity and expanding land designated for infrastructure and settlement projects.”
On X, Smotrich said: “More than 23,000 dunams of land for the benefit of the settlement in Yosh. We determine facts on the ground and thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state!”
Hamas condemnation
The Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas said in a statement that Smotrich’s announcement “unequivocally affirms the colonial intentions of the occupation and its denial of our people’s national rights.”
“These dangerous decisions and the escalating settlement policy, which is accompanied by an increase in the crimes and attacks of settlers on the villages and cities of the West Bank, will be met with more steadfastness and an intensification of resistance to rid the land and holy sites of the occupiers,” the statement added.
The movement said it reaffirmed that Israel’s plans “will not change the facts of history—that the West Bank is purely Palestinian land and an integral part of our Palestinian state.”
2025 expansions
On November 11, the far-right minister said that next year will see the application of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank.
International law views both the West Bank and East Jerusalem as “occupied territories” and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity there as illegal.
In July, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion that declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
