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This story originally appeared in Mondoweiss<\/a> on April 19, 2026. It is shared here with permission.<\/p>\n The Israeli cabinet approved the construction of 34 new West Bank settlements last week, bringing the total number approved by the ruling coalition led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu up to 103.\u00a0The cabinet decision is the largest batch of new settlements approved in decades, breaking the record set by a\u00a0previous landmark decision<\/a>\u00a0in June 2025, which approved 22 new settlements.<\/p>\n While the latest decision has been overshadowed by the regional conflagrations related to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, its timing indicates that Israel perceives a closing window for its ability to entrench its colonial project in its own backyard \u2014 the West Bank \u2014 in light of shifting realities that might see Iran emerging from the war intact and in a strengthened position regionally.\u00a0<\/p>\n These developments come as Israel has\u00a0reportedly<\/a>\u00a0been \u201ccoerced\u201d to halt its\u00a0onslaught<\/a>\u00a0against Lebanon by U.S. President Donald Trump, forcing it to\u00a0accept a ceasefire with Hezbollah<\/a>. Meanwhile, the very fact that the U.S. agreed to a temporary ceasefire with Iran was condemned by the entirety of the Israeli political establishment, both from within Netanyahu\u2019s camp and from the Israeli opposition, who\u00a0lambasted Netanyahu\u2019s \u201cfailure\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to overthrow the Iranian government.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Israel will attempt to use the ceasefire in Lebanon to force the hand of the Lebanese government to accept the ongoing occupation of the southern part of the country, little military progress has been made against Hezbollah, which has reportedly\u00a0rebuilt its military<\/a>\u00a0capabilities since it was bloodied by Israel in October 2024. Iran has also continued to show strength in the region through exerting control over the Straits of Hormuz, and has been\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0by analysts as an emerging \u201cmajor world power.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This is the crucial backdrop to Israel\u2019s moves in the West Bank. It seeks to further cement its de facto annexation of the territory in a race against time to entrench its colonial project in the only geographic region where it can proceed with comparatively minimal resistance.<\/p>\n The closing window<\/p>\n The impatience of the Israeli decision is not only suggested by the magnitude and speed of the cabinet approval, but also by the fact that Israel is in an election year, with polls indicating that Netanyahu and his hardline allies, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, show a low chance of winning.<\/p>\n For Netanyahu, this is personal. The Israeli Prime Minister remains the face of Israel\u2019s attempts to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies in the region, claiming that he is \u201cchanging the face of the Middle East\u201d \u2014 an achievement he hopes would compensate for the security failure on October 7, 2023. The ceasefire with Iran, and now with Lebanon, signals a turn for the worse, giving rise to the need for a \u201cvictory\u201d elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Israel as a whole, this is about rebuilding and reinforcing its own image of force and creating as many facts on the ground as possible during the Trump administration\u2019s remaining years.<\/p>\n Although the cabinet decision is a continuation of Israel\u2019s ongoing annexation plan, \u201cthis is an indication that Israel believes its annexation of the West Bank has not been achieved,\u201d according to Jamal Jumaa, the coordinator of the Palestinian grassroots Stop the Wall campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael fears that it won\u2019t be able to achieve what it wants in the future,\u201d Jumaa told\u00a0Mondoweiss, noting that a sweeping Democratic Party victory in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections might limit the Trump administration\u2019s ability to continue launching indefinite wars in the region. \u201cThe next administration might not be as compliant with Israeli wishes,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n This is made clearer by the nature of the settlement approval, which would drastically reduce the PA\u2019s already limited jurisdiction. Jumaa emphasizes that eight out of the 34 settlements, which are spread across the West Bank from north to south, fall under Area B, which makes up the 22% of the West Bank that falls under joint Israeli-PA administration per the 1993 Oslo Accords. Only 18% of the West Bank, known as Area A, falls under exclusive PA control, and the remaining 61% of the territory, Area C, falls entirely under Israeli control.\u00a0<\/p>\n Building eight settlements on Area B would \u201cpush Palestinians further into isolation, trapping them inside the main urban areas,\u201d Jumaa explained. He believes that the aggressive nature of Israel\u2019s settlement expansion is unprecedented, which suggests that the move is not being pursued due to internal politics alone.<\/p>\n \u201cTaking such a drastic leap might not be as easy once the war in the region stops,\u201d he said. \u201cWorld attention would shift back to the unfinished Gaza ceasefire and the West Bank.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Already, Spain and Italy have suspended military contracts with Israel over its war on Lebanon, Jumaa pointed out, expecting that \u201cmore countries will take similar stands in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet this doesn\u2019t mean that the Palestinian territories will be included in any regional understanding after the war. In fact, according to Jumaa, the opposite motivates Israel\u2019s leaps in the West Bank. \u201cIsrael is refusing to include Lebanon in the Iran ceasefire, so it is only logical to assume that the West Bank and Gaza will remain out of any regional talks, especially with the current weakness and division of the Palestinian leadership,\u201d Jumaa said. \u201cThis is precisely why the issue of the West Bank and Gaza will remain open once the war in the region stops, and Israel will face pressure over it.\u201d Once it does, Jumaa added, Israel wants to have already achieved a de fact situation of annexation, \u201cbefore the Palestine question is bumped back to the top of the world\u2019s political agenda, and under a different set of regional and international circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Palestinians in the West Bank continue to face closures, movement restrictions, daily raids by the Israeli army, and rising violence by Israeli settler groups. Last week, armed Israeli settlers killed a 23-year-old Palestinian man at the entrance of his hometown of Deir Jarir, east of Ramallah. On Thursday, Israeli forces killed another 28-year-old during a raid in Tubas in the northern West Bank. At least 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since October 2023.<\/p>\n This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/therealnews.com\/israel-is-racing-to-expand-west-bank-settlements-before-new-political-realities-end-its-era-of-impunity”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/therealnews.com”>The Real News Network<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/therealnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/cropped-TRNN-2021-logomark-square.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/therealnews.com\/?republication-pixel=true&post=342912&ga4=G-7LYS8R7V51″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/therealnews.com\/israel-is-racing-to-expand-west-bank-settlements-before-new-political-realities-end-its-era-of-impunity”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/therealnews.com\/p.js”><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Qassam Muaddi, The Real News Network April 20, 2026 This story originally appeared in Mondoweiss on April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[1162,34,37,6401,36,6905],"class_list":["post-75462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-article","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-reprint","tag-war","tag-west-bank"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116439499615545196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}