West Bank & Jerusalem
Israel's cabinet funds 34 new settlements with 1.3 billion shekels
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
Israel's security cabinet has attached 1.3 billion shekels to the 34 new West Bank settlements it approved behind closed doors in March, and a further 1.075 billion shekels to the roads that will reach them.
Reuters reported from Jerusalem on 14 July that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the 1.3 billion shekel budget — about $434 million — for establishing the 34 settlements, and said another 1.075 billion shekels would be approved to pave roads to them.
The decision itself was taken on 25 March 2026, according to Peace Now, which said the cabinet kept it confidential and that the organisation's own account rests entirely on media reports because no official text has been published. Cabinet decisions are classified, and The Times of Israel reported that there has been no official government confirmation of the 34 approvals.
Ynet reported that the money was voted through roughly a month before the July announcement and held back to avoid embarrassing the United States at a moment of tension with Washington.
The proposal, Ynet reported, came jointly from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Smotrich and Settlement Affairs and National Missions Minister Orit Strock, and is meant to fund "pioneering neighbourhoods" in dozens of settlements already approved during this government's term, together with the infrastructure that allows first occupancy while permanent works continue.
Middle East Monitor reported that the budget decision was prepared by the Prime Minister's Office and is to be carried out through the Ministry of Construction and Housing.
The road money runs on a separate track.
Israel National News reported that the 1.075 billion shekel plan was drawn up over two months by the Settlement Administration together with the transport and finance ministries, that it will be distributed between the transport and defence ministries across three years, and that it is designed to pay immediately for secure access roads that cannot be funded through the normal development process tied to land marketing.
WAFA reported on 16 July that the government approved the road budget late the previous night, and that it covers Homesh, Sa-Nur, Ganim and Kadim in the northern West Bank — four settlements Israel dismantled in 2005.
On where the 34 will stand, Ynet listed nine in the Samaria area, seven in Binyamin, four in the South Hebron Hills, seven in the Jordan Valley, six in Gush Etzion and one in the Megillot Regional Council.
The Foundation for Middle East Peace, drawing on Israeli reporting, said six of the new settlements are slated for isolated areas of the northern West Bank encircling Jenin, with no current Israeli presence in at least five of those locations, and that three of the six planned for the South Hebron Hills area fall inside military firing zones.
FMEP also reported that eight of the new settlements are planned on land Israel itself recognises as privately owned by Palestinians. Peace Now said all of the sites lie in Area C, where Israel holds full control.
That ownership question decides whether anything can be built. Peace Now, writing about an earlier round of cabinet approvals, set out the mechanism: before planning can begin, land status must change, which in most cases requires a "state land declaration" or work by the military's Blue Line Team to fix the boundaries of state land.
In one earlier case the organisation said the outpost sat on land registered as privately owned by Palestinians and that it was unclear how legalisation could proceed at all. FMEP has separately reported a record year of land seizures, with more than 3,000 acres in the Jordan Valley declared state land.
The published accounts do not agree on what the 34 actually are. Peace Now, citing the list published by i24NEWS journalist Yinon Yittach, said 10 are outposts to be legalised and 24 are new settlements. FMEP put it differently: 20 entirely new settlements, nine outposts legalised retroactively, two expansions of existing settlements and three "neighbourhoods" split off and recognised as independent. Absent the decision text, the breakdown cannot be reconciled.
Nor is there a map. FMEP quoted the Israeli settlement researcher Shaul Arieli saying 32 of the 34 sites lie outside the route of the existing separation barrier, and that the locations remain approximate because no official map has been published and no final coordinates set.
Israel's own military command objected. FMEP reported that when the cabinet considered the 34 settlements, the chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, warned ministers the army lacks the manpower the new sites would demand and could collapse under the burden. Peace Now reported the same objection, made on security grounds.
The spending lands in a year the UN describes in record terms.
OCHA reported on 10 July that more than 3,200 Palestinians had been displaced across the West Bank during 2026 by settler attacks and demolitions for lack of Israeli-issued building permits — an average of 17 people a day, double the daily rate of the preceding three years.
In April, OCHA described the northern West Bank operation as the longest and largest displacement crisis in the West Bank since 1967, citing UNRWA figures of more than 33,360 Palestine refugees displaced since January 2025.
The UN human rights office reported in March that Israel's accelerating settlement expansion and annexation had forcibly displaced over 36,000 Palestinians, and documented 1,732 incidents of settler violence in the year to 31 October 2025, against 1,400 in the previous period.
In July, UN News reported OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani saying the office was "alarmed by the Israeli Government's announcement to further increase the number of settlements and outposts", and that 18 Palestinians had died this year in attacks involving settlers as of 20 July — 12 killed by settlers, three by Israeli forces, responsibility for three disputed.
Israel disputes the position that the settlements are illegal, Reuters noted; UN bodies, Palestinians and most states hold that they are. Smotrich called the road decision "historic" and told Israel National News the government is "leading a settlement security revolution, with more than 100 communities and 160 outposts".
The road budget runs three years. Israel votes on 27 October. Which parcels the 34 settlements will occupy, and how sites on registered private Palestinian land could be legalised at all, remains unpublished.
