RAMALLAH, May 29, 2025 (WAFA) — The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission has strongly condemned the Israeli government’s recent decision to legalize 22 settler outposts in the occupied West Bank, warning that the move escalates Israel’s colonial entrenchment and defies international law.
In a statement on Thursday, the head of the commission, Minister Muayyad Shaaban, said that by turning these outposts into fully recognized settlements, Israel is not only confronting the Palestinian people but also challenging the international community that has long rejected colonialism and refuses to legitimize such actions.
Shaaban stressed that the Israeli government's move, recently approved by the occupation’s security cabinet, aims to deepen control over Palestinian land, distort geographic realities, and reinforce apartheid by granting colonists full privileges at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian population.
According to the commission, the newly recognized outposts are distributed as follows: four in Ramallah, four in Jenin, four in Hebron, two in Nablus, one in Salfit, three in Jericho, three in the Jordan Valley, and one in occupied Jerusalem.
The statement clarified that four of these locations have already had master plans approved in previous years, effectively functioning as full settlements. Three others were originally classified as military sites—one as an observation post—and three are designated as religious sites. The list also includes two former settlements evacuated under the 2005 Disengagement Law, which was amended in 2023 to allow resettlement. Five of the sites are entirely new.
Shaaban noted that while Israel used to disguise these expansions as mere “extensions” of existing settlements, it is now openly revealing the true scale of its land seizure and disregard for Palestinian rights and sovereignty.
“This government, since its formation, has made settlement expansion a top priority, especially the formalization of settler outposts,” Shaaban said. “Its goal is clear: to impose new facts on the ground and fragment the Palestinian territory, killing any viable prospect of a Palestinian state.”
He called on the international community to take meaningful and effective action to hold Israel accountable for its ongoing violations, citing the recent advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice on the illegality of occupation and colonization, as well as UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which declares Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory to be illegal.
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