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Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa (R) and Spanish Foreign Minister Juse Manuel Albares (L) hold a joint press conference after their meeting in Brussels, Belgium on May 26, 2024. [Ata Ufuk Şeker – Anadolu Agency]
Spain’s foreign minister on Friday denounced “catastrophic” humanitarian situation in Gaza, expressed support for peace in Gaza and called for an end to violence in the occupied West Bank, Anadolu reports.
In a phone call with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, Jose Manuel Albares said he conveyed to him Spain’s full support for a definitive peace in Gaza and for an end to the violence in the West Bank.
“Spain will continue working with the Palestinian Authority to sustain its financial viability and its reform plan,” he wrote on US social media company X, calling on Israel to transfer Palestinian tax revenues.
According to the Palestinian Finance Ministry, Israel has been withholding nearly $2 billion in Palestinian tax revenues since 2019, describing this as a “flagrant violation” of all signed agreements.
Albares said the expansion of illegal settlements must stop as 2025 closed as a record-breaking year for expansion in the occupied West Bank, with Israel’s far-right coalition approving an unprecedented number of new settlements and housing projects.
Earlier this week, Israel approved the construction of 126 settler homes in the Sa-Nur settlement outpost in the northern West Bank, which was evacuated in 2005 under a unilateral disengagement plan.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is catastrophic. Restrictions on NGOs are unacceptable and worsen the situation,” said the Spanish foreign minister, stressing that UN agengies including the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) must be able to operate freely in Gaza and the West Bank.
“We will take part in the reconstruction so that Gazans have a future in their own land,” he added.
Israel killed more than 71,000 people, mostly women and children, in Gaza since October 2023 and destroyed the enclave. A ceasefire took effect in October 2025 but Israeli violations have continued.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Vote Labour for Genocide.
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A general view from Cebel al-Baba (Mount Baba) area following Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s approval of the “E1” project in Jerusalem on August 15, 2025. [ Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
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.
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.”
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.”
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Vote Labour for Genocide.
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Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, during an interview in Tel Aviv, Israel on 5 December, 2024 [Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Internal disputes inside Israel are continuing to grow between the far-right government and the judicial system, highlighting the depth of the country’s political and institutional crisis. The latest tensions follow a sharp attack by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich against Supreme Court President Judge Isaac Amit.
In an official response issued yesterday, Amit described Smotrich’s remarks as “vulgar statements that crossed a red line”. He stressed that the comments would not affect his work or the performance of the judiciary.
Amit explained, in a message sent to members of the judicial system, that he had received dozens of messages since Monday afternoon from judges and court presidents. They said they felt personally insulted and warned that the remarks had damaged the standing of the judiciary.
He added that the attack was not aimed at him personally alone, but at the judicial institution as a whole.
The Supreme Court president said he thanked the judges for their solidarity and told them that, despite the seriousness of the remarks and their crossing of red lines, “they will not deter me from my path”.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Vote Labour for Genocide.
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People gather for a demonstration in support of Palestinians in Stockholm the capital of Sweden on December 31, 2025. [Atila Altuntaş – Anadolu Agency]
Hundreds of people in Sweden canceled New Year’s celebrations and rallied late Wednesday in the capital Stockholm in solidarity with the people of Gaza, Anadolu reports.
Despite freezing temperatures, protesters assembled at Segels Torg Square following a call by numerous civil society organizations, choosing to mourn children and civilians killed by Israel instead of celebrating the New Year.
Carrying banners reading “Children are being killed in Gaza,” “Schools and hospitals are being bombed,” “Comply with an immediate ceasefire,” and “End food shortages,” the crowd demanded an end to what they described as Israel’s genocide in Gaza and called on Sweden to halt arms sales to Israel.
In a statement made on behalf of the organizers, the protesters said: “In the new year, we reject the mass deaths, sieges in Palestine, and the silence toward these events. We refuse to begin a new year by turning a blind eye to injustice.”
The statement also emphasized that Israel was not adhering to peace commitments with Palestine.
“As the world enters the new year, genocide continues in Palestine. Despite the ceasefire, Palestinians are being killed, the siege continues, and people are freezing to death while left without shelter in tents,” it said.
Waving Palestinian flags and carrying torches, demonstrators later marched toward the Swedish Parliament.
Palestinians have accused Israel of repeatedly violating a ceasefire agreement, which halted a two-year Israeli war that has killed more than 71,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 171,000 others since October 2023.
Since the Oct. 10 ceasefire deal that halted the two-year Israeli war, at least 414 people have been killed and over 1,100 others injured, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Vote Labour for Genocide.
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Israel’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara (L) arrives to attend the weekly cabinet meeting at the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem on July 9, 2023 [GIL COHEN-MAGEN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]
The Israeli government’s legal adviser, Gali Baharav-Miara, on Thursday evening asked Israel’s Supreme Court to issue a conditional order requiring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to explain why he has not dismissed Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
In her request, Baharav-Miara said that “Minister Ben Gvir is abusing his position to improperly influence the activities of the Israeli police in some of the most sensitive areas of law enforcement and investigations, thereby violating basic democratic principles”.
Shortly afterwards, Minister Ben Gvir responded to the Attorney General’s letter by saying: “You are not taken into account!”
In her letter, the Attorney General’s claimed that “Minister Ben Gvir is working systematically to undermine the independence of the police in every possible way, using his broad authority and exerting unlawful influence – direct and indirect – over the use of force and operational decisions in specific incidents, including in highly sensitive matters”.
She added that she had reached an agreement with the minister, but that he had breached it, saying: “The minister is acting unlawfully and in violation of the explicit court rulings issued in his case.”
Baharav-Miara concluded: “At this stage, there is no choice but to conclude that the public cannot be protected from systematic conduct that harms the independence of the police. As stated, this threatens its nature as a non-political state body, with serious consequences for the protection of human rights and the rule of law. This situation results in a real violation of basic democratic values.”
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Vote Labour for Genocide.
