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Israel's defense cabinet has formally approved the establishment of nineteen fresh communities in the occupied West Bank, representing a ongoing drive for settlement expansion.

Hardline Treasury Chief Bezalel Smotrich, a settler who advocated for the measure alongside Defence Minister Israel Katz, asserted that the move was aimed at preventing the formation of a Palestinian state.

According to global statutes, Jewish communities in the occupied West Bank are deemed unlawful.

The decision has elicited censure from Saudi Arabia. The United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has commented that Israel's "relentless" settlement expansion heightens tensions, limits Palestinian use of land, and threatens the prospects of a independent Palestine.

Escalating Unrest and Political Fallout

Violence in the occupied West Bank has escalated since the hostilities in the Gaza Strip started in the autumn of 2023, intensifying concerns that settlement expansion could deepen Israel's occupation and damage the prospects for a peaceful resolution based on two states.

The two-state solution refers to the formation of a Palestinian state in the Palestinian territories, with Jerusalem's eastern sector as its capital, broadly along the borders that existed prior to the 1967 Six-Day Middle East war.

Upon assuming leadership in late 2022, the current Israeli government has significantly increased the approval of fresh communities and initiated the formal recognition for unauthorised outposts, designating them as "extensions" of existing communities.

Sustained Expansion

The most recent approval brings the overall count of communities approved over the preceding 36 months to 69, according to Smotrich.

These approvals are announced only a few days after the UN said that construction in settlements had attained its most intense pace since the year 2017.

The latest group of approvals features the re-establishment of two communities — Ganim and Kadim — which were evacuated almost in 2005.

Previously, the Israeli government approved 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank - labeled as the most significant wave of approvals in decades.

Furthermore, the Israeli government also approved plans in August to erect in excess of three thousand homes in the so-called E1 corridor between the capital and the Maale Adumim community, a project that had been frozen for decades amid intense foreign condemnation.

On that occasion, Smotrich remarked it would "end the notion of a Palestinian state."

Population Realities and International Response

An estimated 700,000 Israeli settlers live in around 160 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the Israel-based anti-settlement group Peace Now. This is territory that Palestinians aspire to have for a future sovereign nation.

Settlement expansion has provoked neighboring countries who have consistently contended it undermines prospects for a peaceful two-state outcome.

It has furthermore fueled concerns about the eventual formal annexation of the disputed territories.

Former US President Donald Trump had once admonished Israel about this step, telling TIME magazine that Israel would lose its backing from the United States if it proceeded.

Recently, the UK - together with other nations including Australia and Canada - recognised a State of Palestine, a significant although primarily ceremonial change in government policy.

The Israeli government strongly rejected the move, with PM Benjamin Netanyahu saying that a sovereign Palestine "is not going to occur."