Israel approves largest land grab in 30 years in West Bank

Israel has approved construction of three wildcat settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, despite international outcry against the regime’s land grab policies.

The Israeli agency which organizes West Bank settlement expansion recognized outposts in Mahane Gadi, Givat Han and Kedem Arava on the edge of the existing settlements, anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now said on Thursday

The regime also approved 5,295 extra settler units in dozens of existing settlements.

The decision marks Israel's approval of the largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in more than three decades. 

The latest approvals "underscore the annexation occurring in the West Bank" and will lead to "irreversible harm," Peace Now said.

In addition, dozens of unauthorized settlements have sprung up in the territories, ranging from a few tents grouped together to prefabricated huts that have been linked to electricity and water supplies.

Israel recently approved the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometers of land in the Jordan Valley, where thousands of settler units are to be constructed.

The land seizure, which was approved late last month, is the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo accords.

The accords, signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), were supposed to bring about Palestinian self-determination in the form of a Palestinian state.

Settlement monitors say the recent land acquisition links Israeli settlements along a crucial corridor adjacent to Jordan, a development they say threatens the formation of a future Palestinian state.

Israel occupied the West Bank, capturing it from Jordan, in the six-day war of 1967. Since then, successive regimes have made efforts to permanently cement Israeli control over the land, in part by declaring large swathes as “state lands”, which prevents private Palestinian ownership.

On Thursday, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry called on Israel to reverse the largest illegal confiscation of Palestinian land since 1993.

“Israel’s long-held policy of dispossession, land confiscation and establishing illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, undermines our collective efforts to realize a two-state solution and a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” Norway’s Foreign Ministry said.

“Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, and they pose a significant threat to peace and security in the region.”

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) also recently condemned Israel’s plan to build new settlement outposts in the West Bank.

In a statement on June 29, the powerful grouping of 57 Islamic nations vehemently denounced the regime’s decision to legitimize five new outposts, and subsequent construction of thousands of new units in the area.

The intergovernmental Islamic organization also criticized the imposition of taxes on churches as well as their affiliated institutions and property in the occupied Old City of al-Quds. It slammed the regime’s deduction of the Palestinian tax revenues. 

Such measures are in line with the entity's policy of ethnic cleansing, forced displacement and genocide against Palestinian people, the OIC said.

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