Abdel Raouf Arnaout and Rania Abushamala<\/p>\n
15 July 2026\u2022Update: 15 July 2026<\/p>\n
Israel’s Security Cabinet has approved the construction of a new illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Wednesday, bringing the number of settlements authorized by the Benjamin Netanyahu government to 104 since 2022.<\/p>\n
In a post on the US social media company X, Smotrich said the Cabinet had approved his proposal to establish a new settlement near the settlement of Sanur of the northern West Bank.<\/p>\n
The leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party said the latest decision raises the number of illegal settlements approved by the current government to 104 since the government took office in late 2022.<\/p>\n
Smotrich described the move as part of a “historic revolution” in the occupied West Bank, claiming it would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n
“One hundred and four settlements and more than 160 farms will form a defensive wall” for several Israeli cities, he said.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes amid an acceleration of illegal Israeli settlement activities in the occupied West Bank ahead of Israel’s general election scheduled for Oct. 27.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Israeli media reported that the Security Cabinet had secretly approved a plan in March 2026 to establish 34 new illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n
The UN has repeatedly affirmed that Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law, warning that they undermine prospects for a two-state solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abdel Raouf Arnaout and Rania Abushamala 15 July 2026\u2022Update: 15 July 2026 Israel’s Security Cabinet has approved the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43,180804],"class_list":["post-542932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}