Israeli settlements in W Bank growing: UN

NEW YORK, Dec 13 (AFP/Reuters): The expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is at its highest level since at least 2017, when the United Nations began tracking such data, according to a report by the UN chief seen by AFP on Friday.

In 2025, "plans for nearly 47,390 housing units were advanced, approved, or tendered, compared with some 26,170 in 2024," the report said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the "relentless" expansion, saying it "continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous and sovereign Palestinian State."

"These figures represent a sharp increase compared to previous years," he added, noting an average of 12,815 housing units were added annually between 2017 and 2022.

Excluding east Jerusalem, which was occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967, some 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, along with about three million Palestinian residents.

"These developments are further entrenching the unlawful Israeli occupation and violating international law and undermining the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination," Gutteres said.

Guterres also condemned the "continued escalation of violence and tensions in the occupied West Bank," pointing out operations by the Israeli Defense Forces in the northern West Bank that have killed a "high number" of people, displaced residents and destroyed homes and other infrastructure.

Violence in the West Bank has soared since Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.

Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 1,022 Palestinians in the West Bank -- both militants and civilians -- since the start of the conflict, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.

At least 44 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank from Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations during the same period, according to Israeli data.

Israel's cabinet has decided to give legal status to 19 settlements in the occupied West Bank, including two that were vacated 20 years ago under a pullout aimed at boosting the country's security and the economy, Israeli media reported.

The Palestinian Authority on Friday condemned the move, announced late on Thursday. Some of the settlements are newly established, while others are older, Israeli media said.

The move to legalise the settlements in the West Bank -- territory Palestinians seek for a future state -- was proposed by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.

Most world powers deem Israel's settlements, on land it captured in a 1967 war, illegal. Numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions have called on Israel to halt all settlement activity.

Israel disputes this, saying it has historical and biblical ties to the land.

Construction of settlements -- including some built without official Israeli authorization -- has increased under Israel's far-right governing coalition, fragmenting the West Bank and cutting off Palestinian towns and cities from each other.

The 19 settlements include two that Israel withdrew from in 2005, evacuated under a disengagement plan overseen by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that focused mainly on Gaza.

Under the plan, which was opposed by the settler movement at the time, all 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza were ordered to be evacuated. Most settlements in the West Bank were unaffected.

In a statement on Friday, Palestinian Authority minister Mu'ayyad Sha'ban called the announcement another step to erase Palestinian geography.

Sha'ban, of the Palestinian Authority's Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, said the decision raised serious alarms over the future of the West Bank.

Home to 2.7 million Palestinians, the Israeli-occupied West Bank has long been at the heart of plans for a future Palestinian nation existing alongside Israel.