Israeli ministers announce plans for new illegal settlements in Gaza and West Bank | Gaza

Israel’s defense and finance ministers announced plans to fund more than $400 million (£300 million) for three illegal settlements in Gaza and construction expansion in the occupied West Bank, while Israel’s military commander in the region hailed the violent outposts as “security partners”.

With national elections scheduled for October 27, Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is racing to expand control of territory in occupied Palestine and expel Palestinians before the end of its term.

Defense minister Israel Katz said he plans to establish three “Nahal” outposts in northern Gaza, a type of military community that has paved the way for Israeli civilian settlements for decades.

Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced 1.3bn shekels (£318m) in funding for dozens of new Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The cabinet allocated the money last month but kept the decision secret due to expected US opposition and Israeli media reported.

Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, who commands Israeli forces in the West Bank, told residents of the extremist outpost that he “appreciates their work” and sees them as the military’s partners in security.

Bluth, who himself grew up in a West Bank settlement, spoke Wednesday at a meeting of the Farms Union, a group that euphemistically represents settlements that are illegal even under Israeli law.

They play a key role in terror campaigns that displace Palestinians from their homes and lands in the occupied West Bank.

Dozens of members of Israel’s political and military elite, including two former prime ministers and former heads of all security services, have threatened legal action against their government for support for Jewish terrorism in the West Bank.

The UN Palestine Human Rights Office said: “Settler violence is state violence.” new report released this week It details how Israel used settlers to lead annexation efforts, while systematic impunity for perpetrators allowed violence to escalate unchecked.

Hagit Ofran of Israeli activist group Peace Now said bulldozers were working on at least seven settlements that will be filled before election day. “The government is running a reckless pre-election run to raid the public purse to reveal the facts on the ground,” Ofran said.

Katz outlined settlement plans for Gaza during his visit to Israeli-controlled parts of the region. He also pushed for ethnic cleansing of Gaza through large-scale exodus of Palestinians. “I plan to establish three Nahal outposts, which are also a military structure, in those regions. [Israeli settlements] “In the north of Gaza,” he told Channel 14 TV.

Dror Etkes, founder of the Kerem Navot advocacy group that monitors Israel’s land grab in the occupied West Bank, said the Nahal outposts were not intended for military use in the long term. “The military is only the first phase aimed at preparing the country for future settlement,” he said. “Dozens of Israeli settlements were established together in this way in the West Bank.”

Etkes said Nahal settlements were first established in the 1950s in border areas, including around the Gaza Strip. From 1967 the same system was used in the occupied West Bank, initially along the Jordan valley, and later spread to other regions.

Smotrich also said: last month He said that plans for three settlements in Gaza have been completed and that work can begin as soon as Netanyahu gives the green light. The prime minister’s office did not respond to requests for comment on Katz’s plans.

Katz also told Channel 14 that he “felt good” when he saw the barren pile of rubble that had replaced Palestinian homes and communities in much of Israeli-occupied Gaza.

Israel’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Major General Tamir Yadai, told Katz in an on-camera briefing that Israel currently controls 65 percent of Gaza. This is far beyond the 53 percent agreed upon last year under a ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump.

Approximately 2 million Palestinians who survived Israel’s war of destruction are concentrated in the remaining third of Gaza’s territory.

“When you control 65% of the region, when you kill over 70,000 terrorists here, I don’t know how to describe it other than victory,” Yadai said.

His figures label 21,000 Palestinian children killed in Israeli attacks as “terrorists”; Among them, more than 1,000 babies do not even reach their first birthday.

The Israeli military has acknowledged that a database of Gaza war dead compiled by Palestinian health authorities is largely accurate. It includes more than 73,000 people listed by name along with their Israeli-issued identification numbers.

More than 21,000 were children; More than 10,000 were women under 60 and more than 5,000 were elderly. The Israeli military declined to comment directly when asked whether Yadai’s data counted women, children and the elderly as “terrorists.”

A spokesman said the military was still assessing the death toll in Gaza and had not briefed civilian officials on the matter, despite Yadai’s comments to Katz.

“The IDF is currently conducting a personnel assessment regarding the distribution and classification of its casualties. The process has not yet been completed and has not been presented to the political level,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman declined to comment on Bluth’s support for settler militants and said decisions about settlements were a political matter.