West Bank: Israeli Settlements Drive De Facto Annexation, Worsen Palestinian Tragedy

Women Journalists Without Chains has issued a stark warning over the escalating consequences of Israel’s continued settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank,

describing the policy as one of the most dangerous systematic threats to the Palestinian presence and a central mechanism for enforcing de facto annexation while dismantling the geographic and demographic foundations of Palestinian life.

The organization said the Israeli government’s approval on Sunday, December 21, 2025, of 19 new settlements represents a significant new phase in a rapidly intensifying colonial strategy. With this decision, the number of settlements authorized over the past three years alone has risen to 69, encompassing thousands of housing units — a development that constitutes a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and binding United Nations resolutions.

According to the organization, settlement construction is no longer an isolated or unlawful residential activity, but rather a coordinated state policy designed to seize Palestinian land, impose irreversible political and demographic realities, and fracture the social fabric of the indigenous population. Whether carried out through official government decisions or by settlers operating with direct state support, settlement expansion has become a strategic instrument of territorial domination.

Statements by senior Israeli officials underscore the intent behind these measures. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich publicly described the approval of the new settlements as a “historic step,” boasting that the Israeli Security Cabinet had endorsed a proposal he submitted jointly with Defense Minister Israel Katz to legalize and expand settlements in areas he classified as possessing “high strategic importance” — an open admission of deepening colonial control over Palestinian land.

The latest decision followed, within days, the authorization of a major settlement project east of occupied Jerusalem, involving the construction of approximately 3,380 housing units. Smotrich framed the project as part of a declared policy to “strengthen control of the area and protect Jerusalem from the eastern side,” confirming the political objectives driving settlement development.

Earlier this year, in mid-May 2025, the Israeli Cabinet had already approved plans for 22 additional settlements, a move that in practical terms entails the large-scale confiscation of Palestinian land, the construction of settler-only bypass roads, bridges, and tunnels, and the intensification of home demolitions, property seizures, and military expansion through checkpoints and fortified positions. These measures systematically isolate Palestinian communities and sever their geographic and human continuity.

Record-Breaking Construction Deepens Palestinian Displacement and Daily Hardship

Women Journalists Without Chains emphasized that settlement expansion represents one of the most dangerous instruments of dispossession, systematically stripping Palestinians of their land and entrenching irreversible long-term consequences.

Such practices, the organization stressed, are illegal under international humanitarian law, and their continued implementation constitutes a flagrant breach of United Nations Security Council resolutions, which have consistently affirmed the illegality of settlements established on territories occupied since 1967 and have called for the immediate and unconditional cessation of all settlement activity.

Since October 7, 2023, Israeli planning bodies have reviewed 355 master plans for the construction of 37,415 settlement units across approximately 38,551 dunams of Palestinian land. Of these, 18,801 units have already received formal approval, according to data compiled by Palestinian monitoring organizations.

In a particularly alarming assessment, the United Nations reported that Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank reached its highest level in 2025 since systematic documentation began in 2017. UN Secretary-General António Guterres confirmed that building plans, approvals, and tenders in 2025 alone covered approximately 47,390 settlement units, compared with 26,170 units in 2024. He warned that this unprecedented acceleration is inflaming tensions on the ground and directly undermining the viability of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.

The organization further noted that these policies have entrenched an Israeli system of apartheid based on racial discrimination and systematic oppression, transforming Palestinian daily life into an unrelenting cycle of suffering marked by land confiscation, home demolitions, dispossession, denial of basic rights, and severe restrictions on movement and access to livelihoods.

Women Journalists Without Chains also documented a sharp rise in violations committed by Israeli forces and settlers since the beginning of 2025, including deliberate killings, arbitrary arrests, forced displacement, destruction of homes and facilities, expansion of settler grazing outposts, assaults on farmers and agricultural land, livestock theft, and the destruction of trees and crops.

International Law in Retreat as Violations Escalate Across Occupied Territory

The organization recalled that in July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion affirming the illegality of Israel’s occupation and annexation of Palestinian territory, concluding that the policies associated with them constitute serious violations of international law. The court urged the international community to fulfill its legal and moral obligations to bring these ongoing violations to an end.