Israel plans to construct hundreds of settlement houses close to Jerusalem, in impact increasing metropolis’s borders and taking Palestinian land in West Financial institution, activists say.
Revealed On 16 Feb 2026
Palestine’s Jerusalem governorate has denounced an Israeli plan to illegally construct hundreds of settlement houses, warning it might primarily redraw the town’s boundaries and covertly annex elements of the occupied West Financial institution.
The event plan, unveiled by the Israeli state this month, requires the development of two,570 housing items formally tied to Israel’s Geva Binyamin (Adam) settlement, positioned northeast of Jerusalem within the occupied West Financial institution.
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However the designated land sits other than Geva Binyamin, which is separated from it by a freeway and a safety wall. Israeli media reviews stated the brand new development would as an alternative lie nearer and extra related to the Israeli settlement of Neve Yaakov in occupied East Jerusalem.
In consequence, it might in impact mark the primary enlargement of Jerusalem’s boundaries since 1967, Israel’s Ynet Information website reported.
The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem governorate slammed the trouble as “a blatant try to hide the annexation course of behind deceptive planning titles”, based on the authority’s official Wafa information company.
The Israeli rights organisation Peace Now stated it was a backhanded means of making an attempt to annex the West Financial institution.
“The brand new settlement will perform in each means as a neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and its designation as a ‘neighbourhood’ of the Adam settlement is merely a pretext supposed to hide a transfer that successfully applies Israeli sovereignty to areas of the West Financial institution,” Peace Now stated.
The housing venture, designated for Israel’s ultra-Orthodox group, nonetheless wants last approval from the Greater Planning Committee of Israel’s Civil Administration and is anticipated to maneuver ahead in a number of years, based on Ynet.
Displacement of Palestinian individuals
Israeli authorities lately have sought to extra aggressively seize management of Palestinian land within the West Financial institution. On February 8, Israel’s safety cupboard authorized new measures increasing its safety management over Palestinian-controlled elements of the West Financial institution and making it simpler for Israeli settlers to purchase land there.
That transfer was roundly condemned by eight Muslim nations that accused Israel of making an attempt to impose “a brand new authorized and administrative actuality” to speed up the “unlawful annexation and the displacement of the Palestinian individuals”.
The Palestinian Authority presidency additionally decried the “open Israeli try and legalise settlement enlargement” and land confiscation.
Greater than 700,000 Israelis dwell in settlements and outposts within the West Financial institution, that are unlawful beneath worldwide regulation, whereas about 3.3 million Palestinians dwell within the territory.
Israeli forces frequently perform violent raids, conduct arrests and impose restrictions on motion within the West Financial institution, the place assaults by Israeli settlers in opposition to Palestinians have additionally intensified, usually beneath the safety of Israeli troopers.
In January alone, at the least 694 Palestinians have been pushed from their houses within the West Financial institution due to Israeli settler violence and harassment, the very best quantity since Israel’s genocidal struggle in opposition to Palestinians in Gaza erupted in October 2023, based on the United Nations.
