JERUSALEM
Israel’s security cabinet approved a series of steps on Sunday that would make it easier for settlers in the occupied West Bank to buy land while granting Israeli authorities more control over Palestinians, a few days before a meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.
“The security cabinet today approved a series of decisions … fundamentally changing the legal and civil reality in Judea and Samaria,” a statement said, using the biblical names for the occupied West Bank.
The West Bank is among the territories that the Palestinians seek for a future independent state, a goal backed by the majority of the international community. The territory is now under Israeli military occupation, with limited Palestinian self-rule in some areas run by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Citing statements by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz, Israeli news sites Ynet and Haaretz said the measures included scrapping decades-old regulations that prevent Jewish private citizens buying land in the West Bank.
Smotrich said the move aimed at “deepening our roots in all regions of the Land of Israel and burying the idea of a Palestinian state”.
Kats said “Judea and Samaria is the heart of the country, and strengthening it is a paramount security, national and Zionist interest”.
The decisions were also reported to include allowing Israeli authorities to administer some religious sites, and expand supervision and enforcement in areas under PA administration in matters of environmental hazards, water offences and damage to archaeological sites.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the new measures were dangerous, illegal and tantamount to de-facto annexation.
The Palestinian presidency said the “decisions reflect an open Israeli attempt to legalise settlement expansion, land confiscation and the demolition of Palestinian properties, even in areas under Palestinian sovereignty”.
The new measures come three days before Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington.
In his statement, Abbas urged Trump and the UN Security Council to intervene.
Trump has ruled out Israeli annexation of the West Bank but his administration has not sought to curb Israel’s accelerated settlement building, which the Palestinians say denies them a potential state by eating away at its territory.
The Israeli premier, who says the establishment of any Palestinian state is a security threat, is seen as testing the resolve of the US administration on preventing Israel’s annexation of the West Bank.
The hardening of the Israeli government’s position on the West Bank is likely to be a helpful political move for Netanyahu ahead of elections later this year, say analysts.
His ruling coalition includes many pro-settler members who want Israel to annex the West Bank, land captured in the 1967 Middle East war to which Israel cites biblical and historical ties.
The United Nations’ highest court said in a non-binding advisory opinion in 2024 that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there is illegal and should be ended as soon as possible. Israel disputes this view.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements and outposts across the West Bank, which are illegal under international law.
Around three million Palestinians live in the territory.
In 2025, settlement expansion reached its highest level since at least 2017, when the United Nations began tracking the data, according to a recent UN report.
Israel approved 19 settlements in December alone.