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Israel: Minister calls for 1m Jews to settle in West Bank

January 13, 2025 at 11:37 am

Israel’s Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf in Jerusalem on August 20, 2023. [AMIR COHEN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]

Israeli Minister of Construction and Housing Yitzhak Goldknopf on Sunday called for attracting 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 specialises in Haredi news.

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 (the situation in Palestine and the Middle East) to expand settlement construction in the West Bank.”

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.

READ: 3 Palestinians injured in attacks by illegal Israeli settlers in occupied West Bank

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.”

A settlement is established with the approval of the Israeli government, while settlement outposts are established by settlers without the approval of the government.

The United Nations considers settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories illegal and has been demanding them to stop for decades, to no avail, given that they undermine the chances of resolving the conflict based on the two-state solution.

Over the past few months, the voices of ministers in the Israeli government, including its head, Netanyahu, have spoken openly about Tel Aviv’s intention to annex the West Bank, which has been occupied since 1967.

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