Israel’s Smotrich announces plan for 2,162 homes in occupied West Bank

Key points

• The far-right finance minister says the new houses will ‘strengthen our hold on the land’.
• Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced a major expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, as he pushes to annex more of the Palestinian territory.
• Smotrich said on Wednesday that a planning committee had approved the construction of 2,162 new Jewish homes, of which 1,006 units will be in a new illegal settlement near Jerusalem, 922 near the city of Nablus and 234 near Hebron.
• “We are continuing to build the Land of Israel in practice,” Smotrich said in a statement.
• The new homes would “strengthen our hold on the land, reinforce Israel’s security, and establish clear facts on the ground that prevent the creation of an Arab terror state in the heart of the country”.