Since December 2025, Israeli authorities have implemented a series of measures in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, aimed at dispossessing Palestinians and accelerating the annexation of the territory. These actions mark an unprecedented escalation in the expansion of illegal settlements, facilitating land takeovers, authorizing new settlements, expanding existing ones, and formalizing West Bank land as Israeli state property. While successive Israeli governments have long pursued settlement expansion, the current government has intensified these efforts, even as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza unfolds.
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, condemned Israel’s defiance of international law, emphasizing that the lack of global accountability, including unconditional support from the United States, has emboldened Israel to escalate its unlawful actions. The expansion of settlements and state-backed settler violence highlights the international community’s failure to take decisive measures to prevent further dispossession and human rights violations.
On 10 December 2025, the Israel Land Authority announced a tender for 3,401 housing units in the E1 area, east of Jerusalem, aiming to expand Ma’ale Adumim and create a continuity with East Jerusalem. This plan threatens to sever the West Bank in two, disrupting Palestinian urban connectivity between Ramallah, East Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, and could lead to the forcible transfer of Palestinian communities. Although the E1 plan had been largely dormant due to international pressure, its rapid advancement reflects the government’s aggressive settlement agenda.
Since 1967, Israel has maintained a legal and administrative system designed to control and dispossess Palestinians, which the current government is accelerating through fast-tracked settlement expansions and land seizures. In December 2025, Israel approved 19 new settlements, bringing the coalition government’s total to 68 in three years, and increasing the overall number of official settlements to approximately 210. Around 750,000 Israeli settlers now live illegally in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Many new settlements include retroactively legalized outposts built on Palestinian land recently subject to forcible transfers.
In 2025, a record 86 outposts were established, contributing to a surge in state-backed settler violence. These outposts, often protected by the Israeli military and funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, have restricted Palestinian farmers’ and shepherds’ access to their land, destroyed property, stolen livestock, and displaced families. Reports indicate that 21 Palestinian communities were partially or fully uprooted last year, with hundreds forced to flee in freezing conditions.
In January and February 2026, Israeli authorities further escalated land grabs by designating Palestinian land in northern West Bank towns as “state land” and expanding administrative control over planning, construction, and environmental oversight in key areas, including Hebron and Bethlehem. On 15 February 2026, the Israeli cabinet allocated over 244 million NIS to establish a government mechanism for land registration in Area C, effectively consolidating powers under the Ministry of Justice and paving the way for full annexation.
Currently, nearly 58% of Area C land is unregistered, and Israel has seized more than half of this area. Palestinians face extreme difficulties proving land ownership due to outdated Ottoman-era laws. Amnesty International warns that these measures are deliberate steps toward full annexation, undertaken with no regard for Israel’s obligations as an occupying power. The actions violate international law, including the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinions and UN resolutions, while the international community has largely failed to enforce accountability.
