The Israeli government announced on Friday it was confiscating 800 hectares of land in the occupied West Bank, which activists called the largest such seizure in decades.
An area of about 1,980 acres in the northern Jordan Valley has been declared “state land”, said far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has vowed to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which are regarded as illegal under international law.
Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said the seizure was the single largest since the 1993 Oslo Accords, and that “2024 marks a peak in the extent of declarations of state land”.
Peace Now called the timing of the announcement a “provocation” as it came during a visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has been critical of settlement expansion by the hard-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Blinken met Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on Friday for talks which highlighted deep differences between the Israeli government and Washington over the conduct of the war with Hamas.
Blinken said on Friday that an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah would risk “further isolating” Israel and damage its long-term security.
Speaking as he departed Israel, Blinken told reporters he had “candid conversations”, referring to meetings with officials including Netanyahu.
Netanyahu said after meeting Blinken that Israel is prepared to continue its war against Hamas alone.
China and Russia veto US-led UN resolution on Gaza ceasefire
China and Russia veto US-led UN resolution on Gaza ceasefire
Blinken said Washington shared Israel’s goal of defeating Hamas and ensuring its long-term security, but “a major military ground operation in Rafah is not the way to do it”.
“It risks killing more civilians. It risks wreaking greater havoc with the provision of humanitarian assistance. It risks further isolating Israel around the world and jeopardising its long-term security and standing,” he said.
US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu have agreed that an Israeli delegation would visit Washington next week to discuss Israel’s plans for Rafah.
“We’ll be able to lay out for them in detail … how those goals can best be accomplished with an integrated humanitarian military and political plan,” Blinken said. “We’ll put all that on the table. Of course, we’ll hear from them too.”
Blinken also discussed with Israeli officials the “imperative of surging and sustaining humanitarian assistance for the people in Gaza”, he said, citing figures that 100 per cent of the population there is acutely food insecure and in need of humanitarian assistance.
“There have been some positive steps taken in recent days to improve the situation, but it’s not enough,” he said.
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Israeli forces open fire on crowd of Palestinians seeking aid,, as Gaza death toll surpasses 30,000
Israeli forces open fire on crowd of Palestinians seeking aid,, as Gaza death toll surpasses 30,000
The United States has teams in Doha, Qatar where talks are taking place on a temporary ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of remaining hostages taken in the October 7 attacks by Palestinian militant group Hamas, Blinken added.
“We’ve gotten it down to a few remaining gaps but the closer you get to the goal line the harder that last yard is, so there are some hard issues to work through,” Blinken said.
Israel captured the West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and all Israeli settlements in the territory are considered illegal under international law.
“While there are those in Israel and the world who seek to undermine our right over the Judea and Samaria area and the country in general, we are promoting settlement through hard work and in a strategic manner all over the country,” Smotrich said, using Israel’s term for the West Bank.
Jordan condemned the new land seizure, “reaffirming the kingdom’s categorical rejection and denunciation of the Israeli government’s ongoing violations of all international law norms”.
‘We’re going to go in’: Israel says US can’t stop Rafah ground assault
‘We’re going to go in’: Israel says US can’t stop Rafah ground assault
Despite international condemnation of a policy that is regarded as one of the main obstacles to Middle East peace, successive Netanyahu-led governments have sharply accelerated the expansion of Israeli settlements across the West Bank.
Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, they are now home to more than 490,000 Israelis, who live alongside around three million Palestinians.
The United Nations high commissioner for human rights Volker Turk said last week that Israel settlement expansion constituted “a war crime” and risked eliminating any possibility of a viable Palestinian state.
Since the October 7 attacks, violence has escalated between the settlers and Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank.
Several hardline settler leaders have been targeted with asset freezes and travel bans by Britain, the European Union and the United States for their alleged roles in the violence.
Additional reporting by Reuters
