The European Union has expressed deep concern over the current Israeli government's intentions to allocate massive and unprecedented financial appropriations to support settlement expansion in the heart of the West Bank. The Union clarified in an official statement that these steps will inevitably lead to the entrenchment of the settlement presence in areas described as highly sensitive geopolitically, threatening any future opportunities for peace.
The occupation authorities had previously revealed the allocation of a budget of approximately $2.8 billion, aimed directly at building thousands of new housing units and developing settlement infrastructure. These moves come within a comprehensive framework agreement that seeks to change the demographic and geographical reality in the occupied Palestinian territories by adding 12,000 new settlement units.
In a related context, the European Union announced its categorical rejection of the decision to transform the 'Givat Ze'ev' settlement, established on Palestinian lands northwest of Jerusalem, into an official Israeli municipality. The Union reiterated its affirmation of not recognizing any Israeli sovereignty over the territories occupied in 1967, stressing that these measures violate UN Security Council resolutions and international law.
The commander of the Central Command in the occupation army had issued a military order to upgrade the status of 'Givat Ze'ev' from a local council to a city, an administrative step that grants the settlement broad powers and doubled government budgets. This step, according to statements by ministers in the Netanyahu government, aims to accelerate the pace of construction and attract more settlers to block the establishment of a Palestinian state.
For its part, the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission warned of new settlement plans aimed at seizing more than a thousand dunams of Palestinian land to establish more than a thousand housing units. The commission indicated that the so-called 'Higher Planning Council' of the Civil Administration recently discussed several plans that have entered into actual implementation through approval and deposit procedures.
The Palestinian commission considered that this systematic policy reflects the occupation's insistence on imposing new realities on the ground using military and administrative planning tools. It affirmed that the intensification of settlement activity since the beginning of July represents a dangerous escalation aimed at fragmenting Palestinian geography and isolating population centers from each other.
The international community, led by the United Nations, stresses that all settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal and lack any legal basis. International powers believe that the continued confiscation of land, demolition operations, and forced evictions constitute a grave violation of the Geneva Conventions and undermine the pillars of stability in the entire region.
Field data indicate that the pace of settlement has seen record jumps since the current right-wing government took office in late 2022. This government adopts an overt agenda aimed at legitimizing random settlement outposts and transforming them into officially recognized settlements by the occupation authorities, while providing them with all basic services.
In this context, the 'Peace Now' movement estimates that the number of settlers in the West Bank has exceeded half a million people, in addition to about a quarter of a million settlers residing in occupied East Jerusalem. These figures confirm the magnitude of the challenges facing the two-state solution in light of the urban settlement expansion that devours vast areas of the desired Palestinian state's land.
The European Union concluded its statement by demanding that Israel refrain from taking any unilateral measures, including immediately halting demolition operations and land confiscation. It called for adherence to signed international agreements, considering that the continued settlement expansion sends negative messages about the seriousness of the occupation in reaching a comprehensive and just political settlement.
Unilateral Israeli measures aim to entrench settlements in highly sensitive areas and undermine the viability of the two-state solution.
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EU warns of massive Israeli funding to expand West Bank settlements