Smotrich: Agreement to relocate Israeli army camps allows doubling the area of Beit El settlement

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced on Tuesday evening the signing of an agreement to relocate army camps outside Beit El, which will allow doubling the area of the settlement established on Palestinian lands confiscated from the occupied West Bank.

Beit El is located on lands from the cities of al-Bireh and Ramallah, and includes the headquarters of the Civil Administration affiliated with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which is a military governing body operating in the West Bank.

These lands were seized by military orders in 1970, then allocated to settlers in 1977-1978, despite being illegal under international law.

Smotrich, who is also a minister in the Ministry of Defense, said via the American company "X" platform: "I signed today an agreement to evacuate the army camps from the Beit El settlement."

He added: "It is a step that will allow the construction of 1200 new housing units (settlement) in Beit El and almost doubling the settlement's area."

For decades, the Palestinian Authority has unsuccessfully demanded that the international community pressure Israel to end settlement in the occupied territories, which the United Nations considers "illegal."

In another post, Smotrich later clarified: "We signed today a historic agreement to transfer the Civil Administration units from the army base in Beit El to a civilian building affiliated with the government housing administration under my responsibility in the Ministry of Finance."

Smotrich, leader of the far-right "Religious Zionism" party, concluded: "We continue to practice Zionism and develop the settlements."

About 750,000 Israeli settlers live in hundreds of settlements in the West Bank, including 250,000 in East Jerusalem, and they commit daily assaults against Palestinians with the aim of forcibly displacing them.

Since the start of the genocide war in Gaza on October 8, 2023, Israel has intensified its crimes to annex the West Bank to it, especially through demolishing Palestinian homes, displacing them, and expanding settlements, according to Palestinian authorities.

Israel's official annexation of the West Bank would end the possibility of implementing the two-state solution (Palestinian and Israeli), as stipulated in resolutions issued by the United Nations.

In 1948, Israel was established on lands occupied by armed Zionist gangs that committed massacres and displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, then Tel Aviv occupied the rest of the Palestinian lands, and refuses to withdraw and establish a Palestinian state.