The security cabinet approved the establishment of 34 new West Bank settlements in a meeting two weeks ago, The Times of Israel has learned.

The approval of the new settlements — brand new settlements as well as illegal ones retroactively legalized — constitutes the largest number of settlements approved by any government at one time, the Peace Now organization said.

Security cabinet meetings and their decisions are classified, and there has been no official confirmation of the decision to approve the 34 new settlements by the government.

According to the i24 News site, which first broke the story, some of the slated new settlements are located in areas of the northern West Bank isolated from other Israeli settlements but deep among Palestinian population centers, albeit still within Area C of the territory where Israel has full control.

The security cabinet decision brings the total number of settlements approved by the current government to 103 since it took office in 2022.

This amounts to a 78 percent increase in the total number of government-approved settlements in the three and a half years of the current government’s tenure, said Peace Now, which strongly opposes the settlement movement.

By comparison, only six new settlements were formally approved by Israel in the 30 years between the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the establishment of the current government.

Only a handful of the 103 newly approved settlements have received approval through the Civil Administration’s planning processes, meaning that they have yet to be fully authorized.

But as part of its efforts to dramatically increase the number of Israelis living in the West Bank, the current government has greatly streamlined and expedited those approval processes.

According to i24, the security cabinet decision provides for the establishment of water and electricity infrastructure for the new settlements even before their approval by the Civil Administration.

At present, some 144 settlements have been authorized by both the government and the Civil Administration, according to Peace Now numbers. That figure would grow to 235 if all the 103 new settlements approved by the current government are ultimately authorized.

A map published by i24 showed that the new settlements are spread across the entire West Bank.

Ynet reported that during the security cabinet meeting in question, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir expressed deep concern that the approval of the new settlements would further stretch the IDF’s already severely strained manpower resources due to the need to provide them with military protection.

The Yesh Din organization, which campaigns against the settlements, alleged that the approval of the new settlements is designed to advance the “ethnic cleansing” of the West Bank.

It pointed to three new settlements slated to be established in the southern environs of the Palestinian city of Jenin in the northern West Bank, which it said would close Jenin off from other major Palestinian population centers.

“While we were [all] running to bomb shelters, it was urgent for cabinet members to establish dozens more new settlements in the West Bank, thereby advancing the [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich plan for ethnic cleansing of the West Bank by pushing the Palestinians into small, densely populated enclaves in Area A,” the group charged.

Peace Now accused the government of trying to establish as many facts on the ground as possible before the next elections.

“Today, it is clear to everyone, and the IDF emphasizes this again and again, that establishing settlements is harmful to security, places an abnormal burden on the IDF, and harms the possibility of resolving the conflict and reaching some kind of future security and peace,” the group stated.

Separately, Energy Minister Eli Cohen and Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council in the West Bank, announced the establishment of a professional working group to advance the construction of water and electricity infrastructure for new settlements authorized by the government in previous rounds of approvals.

Both Cohen and Dagan stated that the new development was part of a program initiated by Dagan in 2022 to bring a million Israelis to live in the Samaria region of the northern West Bank by 2050. There are presently just 49,000 Israeli residents in the area.

In a meeting earlier this month, Cohen and Dagan agreed that the new working group would be headed by the deputy director general of the Energy Ministry and the director of the Samaria Regional Council, and would also include representatives of the Electricity Company, the Mekorot national water company and the state Water Authority.

Dagan’s office declined to say exactly when the meeting took place, dating it instead to “just before Passover,” which began on the night of April 1.

Among the new settlements to be connected to water and electricity grids are Rehavam, Eibal, Homesh, and Sa Nur, all in the northern West Bank. Those settlements were approved or retroactively legalized by the government in May 2025.

“This is an historic decision. We will ensure that the new homes that are built have lights on and running water. We are applying sovereignty in law and in practice,” Cohen said, in reference to the government’s efforts to de facto annex large parts of the West Bank.

“[We have] before us the map of the ‘Plan for a Million’ in Samaria, from which we have decreed the new settlements… Based on this plan, we will fill the area together with roads, electricity, water and sewage [infrastructure], in order to bring the masses here, millions of citizens of the State of Israel, to the heart of the land, to Samaria,” said Dagan.

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