RAMALLAH, December 23, 2025 (WAFA) – Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz announced his intention to build 1,200 settlement units for the benefit of the Beit El settlement, which sits on Palestinian land at the northern entrance to the city of Al-Bireh.

In response, Mu'ayyad Sha'ban, head of the Commission Against the Wall and Settlements, considered this escalation a clear message that the occupation government is proceeding with imposing new demographic and geographic realities in the heart of the West Bank, specifically in the vicinity of Ramallah.

He emphasized that the announcement of the construction of these settlement units constitutes a dangerous escalation in the Israeli settlement project.

He added that such step cannot be separated from a systematic policy aimed at severing Palestinian geographical contiguity, strangling a vital political and administrative center, and transforming settlements from a temporary tool into a permanent reality imposed by force.

He emphasized that the expansion of Beit El, built on occupied Palestinian land, constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and UN resolutions, which deem all settlement activity illegal. This expansion reaffirms that the occupying power treats any political process merely as a cover for further expansion and creeping annexation.

He noted that hardly a week has passed without the Israeli Planning Council convening to approve new expansion plans for settlements in the West Bank. This reveals a deliberate effort to intensify settlement construction and a policy of racing against time to impose facts on the ground.

He added that international silence regarding these plans is no less dangerous than the plans themselves, as it provides political cover for the continued undermining of the two-state solution and the destruction of any possibility for a just and law-based peace.

Y.S