JERUSALEM: Israel’s cabinet has decided to give legal status to 19 settlements in the occupied West Bank, including two that were vacated 20 years ago under a pullout aimed at boosting the country’s security and the economy.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the move, announced late on Thursday.

Some of the settlements are newly established, while others are older.

The move to legalise the settlements in occupied West Bank, territory Palestinians seek for a future state, was proposed by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz.

Most world powers deem Israel’s settlements, on land it captured in a 1967 war, illegal. Numerous UN Security Council resolutions have called on Israel to halt all settlement activity.

Construction of settlements, including some built without official Israeli authorization, has increased under Israel’s far-right governing coalition, fragmenting the occupied West Bank and cutting off Palestinian towns and cities from each other.

The 19 settlements include two that Israel withdrew from in 2005, evacuated under a disengagement plan overseen by former prime minister Ariel Sharon that focused on Gaza.

Under the plan, which was opposed by the settler movement at the time, all 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza were ordered to be evacuated. Most settlements in occupied West Bank were unaffected.

In a statement on Friday, Palestinian Authority minister Muayyad Shaban called the announcement another step to erase Palestinian geography. Shaban, of the Palestinian Authority’s Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, said the decision raised alarms over the future of occupied West Bank.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2025