The Israeli occupation’s Ministry of Interior recently granted official codes to five new settlement outposts in the West Bank, effectively legalizing construction and allowing their expansion at the expense of Palestinian land.
According to Israel’s Channel 7, the new legalization includes the “Havat Gilad” outpost, built on privately owned Palestinian land southwest of Nablus, bringing it into the list of officially recognized settlements.
Under this “code,” these settlements gain access to significant municipal funding, connection to electricity, water, and sewage infrastructure, and permission to expand construction legally according to Israeli standards.
Channel 7 also reported that the number of outposts legalized under Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has reached unprecedented levels, reinforcing Israel’s control over large areas of Area C in the West Bank.
Earlier, Smotrich stated: “In two months, we succeeded in finding 25 codes for settlements. This step marks the end of the legalization process. This is how we kill the idea of a Palestinian state.”
On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz announced that the government intends to “authorize” more than 140 outposts and settlement farms in the West Bank, aiming to “strengthen settlements and weaken Palestinian efforts to establish roots in the area.”
Settlement outposts serve as strongholds for extremist settler groups, which frequently launch attacks on Palestinian residents, their property, and farmland.
Late last month, the French newspaper Le Monde highlighted in an analytical report how Israeli infrastructure, particularly highways, has become an integral part of the settlement project in the occupied West Bank. Roads and services are used as political and security tools to establish permanent realities on the ground, undermining any realistic prospects for an independent Palestinian state.
According to the Anti-Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Israeli forces and settlers carried out a total of 1,872 attacks in the West Bank during January 2026. The report stated that 1,404 were carried out by the Israeli army and 468 by settlers.
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