Amid international silence and deepening Palestinian suffering, Israel’s Higher Planning Council has approved a record 18,959 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of 2025, dramatically escalating its illegal colonisation of Palestinian land. This wave of approvals marks a dangerous shift in Israeli policy that not only intensifies land theft but also normalises it under the guise of bureaucratic routine.

According to Hebrew media and the Israeli watchdog Peace Now, the Council is now convening nearly every week to greenlight new construction, a stark departure from the previous practice of meeting just four times a year. This change, introduced by the Netanyahu government in June 2023, stripped the Israeli Defence Minister of oversight at every stage of settlement planning, removing one of the last symbolic checks on this expansion.

The latest batch of 1,673 units will be built across six settlements, including Betar Illit, Givat Ze’ev, Kiryat Netafim, and Alon Moreh, all established on land stolen from Palestinians. The impact of this systematic settlement surge is devastating: not only does it deepen the fragmentation of Palestinian territory, but it fuels a settler violence crisis that goes hand-in-hand with military repression.

Just last week, Israel approved 22 new settlements, further entrenching its occupation, particularly near the Jordanian border. The expansion comes despite a landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice in July 2024, declaring Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories illegal and calling for the evacuation of all settlements.

While the world’s attention remains fixed on the genocide unfolding in Gaza, Israel is redrawing the map of the West Bank with bulldozers and concrete. More than 770,000 settlers now live across 180 settlements and 256 outposts, many of which operate with impunity, under army protection, and beyond the reach of international law.

The UN continues to condemn settlement activity as illegal, but its resolutions remain unenforced. On the ground, Palestinians face a daily assault on their existence, through arrests, land confiscation, home demolitions, and forced displacement, driven by a settler-colonial agenda aimed at erasing their presence from their homeland.