Israel has approved its largest land seizure in the occupied West Bank in more than three decades, a settlement tracking group said Wednesday.
The decision was denounced by activists, who said it would further increase tensions brought on by the war in Gaza and dash hopes for a Palestinian state and a two-state solution for peace.
In June, an official declaration obtained by media outlets said that 12.7 square kilometers of land in the Jordan Valley had been formally designated as "state property," which allows the land to be leased to Israelis and prevents Palestinians from privately owning it.
"The size of the area designated for declaration is the largest since the (1993) Oslo Accords, and the year 2024 marks a peak in the extent of declarations of state land," said Peace Now, a group based in Tel Aviv, Israel, that tracks the growth of Israeli settlements.
The tracking group said on Wednesday that the land would connect settlements in an area along the Jordan border and make the prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state less likely.
At the U.N., spokesperson Stephane Dujarric called it "a step in the wrong direction," adding that "the direction we want to be heading is to find a negotiated two-state solution."
Israel gained control over the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 Mideast war.
Since then, Israel has built settlements throughout the West Bank, where more than 490,000 Israelis live. These settlements are considered illegal under international law.
About 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, some in places administered by the Palestinian Authority. But much of the West Bank is off-limits to the authority despite the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live there.
The Israeli government announced that it has taken over 23.7 square kilometers of land in the West Bank since the beginning of this year.
The newly taken land is in a place where settler violence was displacing communities of Palestinians even before the Israel-Hamas war. The violence has increased since Hamas' attack on October 7 started the war in Gaza.
Palestinians assert that the violence is aimed at expanding Israeli control over large areas and diminishes the likelihood of achieving a Palestinian state.
Israel's rapid growth in the West Bank shows how influential the settler community is in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is known as the most religious and nationalist in Israel's history.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a settler, has accelerated the land expansion. He has taken new powers to develop settlements and aims to strengthen Israel's control over the land to prevent the formation of a Palestinian state.
"We came to settle the land, to build it, and to prevent its division and the establishment of a Palestinian state, God forbid," he said during a conference for his ultranationalist Religious Zionism Party last month.
"Today, it is clear to everyone that this conflict cannot be resolved without a political settlement that establishes a Palestinian state alongside Israel," Peace Now said in a statement. "Still, the Israeli government chooses to actually make it difficult and distance us from the possibility of peace and stopping the bloodshed."
Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse).
