The Israeli government on May 29 announced the establishment of 22 new settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank—including the recognition and expansion of several already existing “wildcat” outposts, built without government permission. Defense Minister Israel Katz said that building the settlements was “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel.” The announcement comes amid expanding Israeli military operations and settler violence on the West Bank, and open calls from Israeli officials—including cabinet members such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—to annex the territory. (TNH, ToI, Reuters)
Three days before the announcement, right-wing Israelis marched through Jerusalem’s Old City, chanting “Death to Arabs,” “Your home will be ours,” and “May your village burn”—with some assaulting Palestinian residents. Crowds of Israeli ultra-nationalists were bussed in for the “Jerusalem Day” march, which commemorates the occupation and annexation of East Jerusalem after the 1967 war. One group of marchers stormed an UNRWA compound—including Yulia Malinovsky, one of the Knesset members behind a law banning the agency’s activities from areas under Israeli jurisdiction.
Another group, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, pushed into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, where one Knesset member, Yitzhak Kroizer, was seen praying—in defiance of protocols of Israel’s agreement with the Islamic trust that controls the compound
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said the annual Jerusalem Day event has become a festival of “hatred and racism,” adding it was “a disgrace and an insult to Judaism.” (Al Jazeera, France24, BBC News, AP)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marked the day with a cabinet meeting in the City of David archeological site, where he pledged: “We will keep Jerusalem united, whole, and under Israeli sovereignty. Jerusalem, our eternal capital, was reunited 58 years ago in the Six-Day War. It will never be divided again… There is no Zionism without Zion, and no Israel without Jerusalem.” (JNS, MEE)
Photo: delayed gratification via New Jewish Resistance
Settlers attacking IDF on West Bank
A wave of settler violence in the occupied West Bank has taken an unexpected turn inward, with dozens of Israeli settlers rampaging through IDF outposts, attacking soldiers, and torching infrastructure over the past few days. (TNA)
Condemn murder of Palestinian activist on West Bank
Amnesty International condemned the murder of a prominent Palestinian activist, Awdah Al-Hathaleen, in a press release on Wednesday, highlighting the ongoing Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and the failure of authorities to act to prevent such attacks.
Amnesty International senior director for research and advocacy Erika Guevara Rosas noted that Hathaleen had “recently warned UK Members of Parliament about threats to his life.”
Al-Hathaleen was killed on July 28, fatally shot in the chest by Israeli settler Yinon Levi. According to Amnesty International, “state-backed settlers” were bulldozing and destroying “a sewage pipeline and running over olive trees in Umm Al-Kheir,” on the West Bank.
Video footage on X (formerly Twitter) shows Levi waving a firearm and firing several shots during a confrontation, while others flee the scene. Levi is under US sanctions for violent extremism on the West Bank, including acts of “destroying property, assaulting civilians, and violence against Palestinians.”
Levi was subsequently arrested and released by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court to house arrest until Friday. According to an Israeli news report, Levi claimed self-defense in that “a large number of rioters” were throwing rocks at him and preventing “construction work.” The police are allegedly seeking to charge Levi with reckless manslaughter.
Rosas criticized the response by Israeli authorities:
UN experts last week also addressed settler violence on the West Bank, calling the attacks on Palestinians and destruction of property a “systematic pattern of human rights violations” and forced displacement. The UN warned that “silence and inaction only embolden further violations,” calling on the international community to act. (Jurist)
Awdah had been an activist since he was 17 years old, working to stop the Israeli attempts to expel the villagers of Masafer Yatta from their homes and lands. He recently worked with Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, who co-directed No Other Land, a documentary film that won an Oscar award this year. (Al Jazeera)
West Bank settlement bloc ‘death blow to the two-state solution’
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has approved the new E1 settlement plan near Ma’aleh Adumim, which would split East Jerusalem from the West Bank.
Standing at the site of the planned settlement on Aug. 14, Smotrich said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump had agreed to the revival of the E1 development.
“Those around the world who try to recognize a Palestinian state will see our response on the ground—not with documents or declarations, but with facts: homes, roads, and Jewish families building their lives here,” Smotrich said.
Israel had frozen construction plans there since 2012 because of objections from the United States, European allies, and other world powers who considered the project a threat to any future peace deal with the Palestinians.Â
Peace Now previously called the plan a “death blow to the two-state solution,” because it calls for effectively splitting the West Bank into two parts. (JP)Â
Smotrich made explicitly clear that this is his intention: "The time has come to fully apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, to forever remove from the table the idea of dividing the land and to make sure that, by September, Europe's hypocrite leaders will simply have nothing to recognize." (NewsHour)
Smotrich rejoices as mega-settlement plan gets final green light
A major construction project that would see some 3,400 housing units built in the contentious E1 area in the West Bank, between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, was given final approval Aug. 20.
Announced last week by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the controversial plan was formally greenlit by the Higher Planning Committee of the Civil Administration, a Defense Ministry department.
Smotrich, who also holds a junior ministerial position in the Defense Ministry that grants him wide say in settlement construction, called the decision “historic.” (ToI)