The year 2023 saw a record expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the largest since the signing of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, according to a report by the European Union mission in the Palestinian territories released on Friday. The mission predicted on the X platform that "conditions will worsen in 2024 due to recent developments."
According to the report, Israeli authorities granted licenses for the construction of 12,349 housing units in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. This figure is a record, as it has not been reached since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. In East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel in 1967, licenses were granted for the construction of 18,333 housing units.
In total, approvals were granted for the construction of 30,682 settlement housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2023, marking the largest number of permits issued in a single year since 2012, according to the EU. The report notes the implications of these projects for the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "based on Jerusalem as the capital of both states," Israel and Palestine.
The report reminded that the EU has repeatedly urged Israel to halt its settlement activities and put an end to all settlement expansions. Israeli settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are deemed illegal under international law, but they have continued under all successive Israeli governments since 1967.
Currently, far-right parties within Israel's ruling coalition are pushing to accelerate settlement expansion. About 490,000 settlers live in the occupied West Bank, which has a population of around three million Palestinians. Additionally, there are "illegal" settlements built without permits in the West Bank. In 2023, 26 such settlements were established, the largest number in a single year since 1991, according to the report, which indicated that the Israeli government intends to legalize 15 of them. The West Bank is also experiencing an increase in violence, particularly since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
