According to the Palestinian state’s Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission the number of settlers in the West Bank “reached about 770,420 settlers by the end of 2024.
Israel’s Minister of Construction and Housing Yitzhak Goldknopf has called for one million Jews to settle in the occupied West Bank.
His call was made during a tour of the northern West Bank, according to the Israeli website Behadrei Haredim, which specializes in Haredi news, cited by the Middle East Monitor (MEMO).
The minister urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to: “Bring one million Jews to Judea and Samaria,” the Jewish name for the West Bank.
Goldknopf also pushed him to: “Seize the current opportunity to expand settlement construction in the West Bank.”
Open Rhetoric
The Israeli minister’s statements come despite Palestinian, Arab and international warnings against Tel Aviv expanding its settlement activity in the West Bank and its efforts to annex the area to its territories, reported MEMO.
According to the Palestinian state’s Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission the number of settlers in the West Bank “reached about 770,420 settlers by the end of 2024, distributed over 180 settlements and 256 settlement outposts, 138 of which are classified as pastoral and agricultural,” the report added.
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A settlement is established with the approval of the Israeli government, while settlement outposts are established by settlers without the approval of the government, explained the report.
Over the past few months, reported MEMO, Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have spoken openly about Tel Aviv’s intention to annex the West Bank, which has been occupied since 1967.
ICJ Ruling
Under international law, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered “occupied territories” and all Jewish settlement-building activity there is illegal.
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In a landmark advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice declared in July last year that Israel’s ongoing decades-long occupation of Palestinian land was “unlawful ” and should be brought to an end “as rapidly as possible.”
The past year has seen the “highest number” of illegal Israeli settler-related incidents in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Settler Attacks
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the year 2024 saw the “highest number” of illegal Israeli settler-related incidents in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The UN Office said, “2024 has seen the highest number of settler-related incidents across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the office began keeping records almost two decades ago.”
Record-High Settler Violence: Nearly Four Incidents Daily in West Bank in 2024
“About 1,400 such incidents – including physical assaults, arson attacks, raids on Palestinian communities and the destruction of fruit trees – have resulted in Palestinian casualties, damage to property, or both,” stated the OCHA. “This is nearly four incidents per day.”
Of the 4,700 people internally displaced across the West Bank in the past year, “about 560, or 12 per cent,” have cited settler violence and access restrictions as the main reasons that forced them out of their homes or communities, the UN office noted.
The year 2024 “has also marked the second highest number of Palestinian fatalities in the West Bank since OCHA’s records began, following 2023 which was the highest.”
(PC, MEMO)
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