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2025 closed as a record-breaking year for illegal Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, with Israel’s far-right coalition approving an unprecedented number of new settlements and housing projects – a push rights groups say is aimed at annexing the territory and blocking Palestinian statehood.
According to Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, the approvals finalized this year capped an acceleration that began under the current government, surpassing any period since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993.
“This is nothing to compare to previous governments,” Yonatan Mizrachi of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch Team told Anadolu.
“The goal of this government … is to prevent a political solution based on a two-state solution,” he said.
41 settlements approved in 2025
Peace Now said plans for 41 new illegal settlements were approved in 2025, making it the most extensive single year of settlement approvals on record. The figure includes both newly announced settlements and the retroactive legalization of previously unauthorized outposts.
In May, Israel’s Security Cabinet approved the construction of 22 new illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank – the largest expansion in decades.
The move included the reestablishment of settlements in Homesh and Sa-Nur, which were dismantled under Israel’s 2005 unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
On Dec. 21, the Security Cabinet approved an additional plan to legalize 19 more settlements in the occupied West Bank, some newly established and others long-standing outposts now granted formal status.
READ: 14 countries urge Israel to halt settlement construction in West Bank
Mizrachi said the current government moved quickly after taking office, legalizing 10 outposts in early 2023 and transforming nine of them into settlements.
Outposts are illegal even under Israeli law, while settlements are considered legal by Israel despite being illegal under international law.
Altogether, 68 settlements have been approved, legalized or initiated over the past three years, Peace Now said.
“This does not mean that all 68 settlements have already been established” Mizrachi said. “It means the process has begun – with government support, different planning committees and authorities.”
Spread across entire West Bank
The expansion is geographically wide-ranging, extending into areas where no settlements previously existed.
“Sixty-eight settlements that will be built according to the Israeli plan from the south to the north or from the north to the south,” said Mizrachi. “Including areas that today we don’t have any settlements like areas around Jenin, around Hebron.”
“It’s all over the West Bank actually,” he added.
In early 2023, there were more or less 140 settlements in the occupied West Bank, Mizrachi said. With recent approvals, that number has risen to 208.
The total number of Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank now stands at about 750,000.
Settlement expansion has also accelerated through construction approvals.
Peace Now on its website said Israeli authorities advanced plans for 28,163 settler housing units in 2025 – the highest figure ever recorded.
On the final day of the year, Israeli authorities approved a plan allowing settlers to return to Sa-Nur, greenlighting 126 housing units at the site evacuated in 2005, according to Israeli media.
The move was enabled by amendments introduced by the current government to the Disengagement Law, lifting restrictions on Israeli presence in parts of the northern West Bank.
Peace Now said the approval marks a return to settlement activity deep inside the northern West Bank, in densely populated Palestinian areas where settlers had not previously been present.
Blocking Palestinian statehood
Mizrachi said settlement expansion is central to the government’s strategy to prevent Palestinian statehood without formally declaring annexation.
“In the last three years, Israel has taken many steps – bureaucratic steps, advancing settlements, developing the West Bank – to increase the number of Israeli settlers,” he said.
“The aim is to prevent a Palestinian state in any political solution, because there will be so many settlements and so many locations with an Israeli presence that it would be much more difficult to evacuate.”
READ: PA’s Abbas urges pressure on Israel to halt settlement expansion and settler terrorism
He said pressure from settler movements has intensified, pushing the government toward de facto annexation while avoiding a formal declaration due to international and US pressure.
B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, spokesperson Yair Dvir said the settlement drive is accompanied by the forcible displacement of Palestinians.
“Israel continues to advance ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, both through the construction and retroactive legalization of outposts and new settlements, and through the forcible displacement of Palestinian communities and the violent takeover of vast areas of Palestinian lands,” he told Anadolu.
Concerns for 2026
Looking ahead, Mizrachi said settlement expansion is likely to continue into 2026, an election year in Israel.
“We are assuming that the advancing of settlement, house units, financial support to the settlers will continue in 2026 – it might increase or might not,” he said. “But definitely, the pattern that we have seen in the last three years will continue.”
He added that since October 2023, dozens of Palestinian communities have been forced to flee due to settler violence.
“Many times, an outpost is built next to the Palestinian community, making it more tense for the Palestinians to stay there,” he said. “We still see a lot of settler violence, much of it coming from illegal outposts.”
Mizrachi warned the trajectory is deepening instability.
“Instead of going toward a political solution that would mean withdrawing from the West Bank,” he said, “we are just going deeper into a more problematic situation.”
READ: Israel’s direct damage to vital sectors in Gaza exceeds $33B in 2025: Gaza government
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