Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a plan on Thursday to establish 13 new settlements in the central occupied West Bank, a move Palestinian officials say will further fragment the territory and isolate East Jerusalem from its surrounding Palestinian communities. Israel’s Channel 7 reported the approval for the Binyamin regional area, one of the largest settlement blocs in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate.
The plan runs along Route 60, the central north-south artery that links Palestinian cities including Nablus, Ramallah, and Bethlehem while also connecting major Israeli settlements. The first phase is expected to begin in the coming months and will include the establishment of four to six new settlements, backed by investments worth millions of shekels, the governorate said. Several existing pastoral outposts are slated for formal legalization under the same decision, enabling them to receive government funding and infrastructure.
Cabinet Approves 13 New Settlements in Binyamin Area
Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a plan to establish 13 new settlements in the Binyamin regional area on Thursday, Israeli Channel 7 reported. The cabinet decision covers one of the largest settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank, with the first phase expected to begin in the coming months. The Jerusalem Governorate said the phase will deliver four to six new settlements backed by investments worth millions of shekels. The same decision legalizes several existing pastoral outposts, allowing them to receive government funding and infrastructure. The governorate described the package as 13 new settlements on top of an existing footprint of Israeli-built sites in the central highlands.
The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate framed the decision as a deliberate redrawing of the central West Bank, designed to link settlement blocs, tighten Israeli control over strategic hilltops, and restrict Palestinian territorial continuity. The governorate linked the acceleration of settlement activity to domestic political calculations in Israel, particularly with Knesset elections approaching, and called on the international community to intervene. The decision follows reports that settlement movements are preparing to target Area A, territory under full Palestinian control, in what would constitute a violation of the Oslo Accords.
The plan seeks to create new geographical realities on the ground.
The line is from a written statement by the Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate. The same statement warned that the expansion would undermine the prospects of establishing a geographically contiguous Palestinian state, a framing drawn from the Jerusalem governorate’s full statement on the Binyamin plan.
Why Route 60 Anchors the Plan
The plan’s geography is the point. Route 60 is the central spine of the West Bank, threading through Palestinian cities and serving as the connective artery that also links the territory’s largest settlement blocs. By building along the corridor northwest of Jerusalem and west of Ramallah, the new 13 settlements would stitch together existing Israeli-built areas that today sit as scattered islands on the landscape. The second arm of the plan extends eastward toward the Jordan Valley, projecting Israeli-built territory into the strip of land that separates the central highlands from the Jordanian border.
The Jerusalem Governorate said the scheme is designed to link settlement blocs and tighten Israeli control over strategic hilltops. The two-corridor design shows that the 13 new sites are not a scattered set of additions but a coordinated map. Each new settlement, once built, would push the Israeli-built line further into land that Palestinian planners have long assumed is needed for a contiguous state.
The corridor runs through the same central highlands where Route 60 already passes Israeli settlements alongside Palestinian towns, with the highway effectively serving as both artery and seam. The first phase commits only four to six of the 13 new settlements, with millions of shekels of investment, leaving the timing of the remaining sites unspecified. The pastoral outposts being legalized under the same decision add a second layer of growth that does not require new construction permits, because the structures already exist. Once legalized, those outposts qualify for government funding and infrastructure, a step the Jerusalem Governorate described as converting informal settlement activity into permanent Israeli-built assets. The combined effect, the governorate’s statement said, is to push Palestinian territorial continuity further out of reach, with Route 60 acting as the structural anchor.
Pastoral Outposts Made Legal
Buried inside the Binyamin plan is a quieter decision that does not require a single new building permit. Several existing pastoral outposts are slated for formal legalization under the cabinet decision. These are small herding and farming sites that settlers have established in the West Bank without formal Israeli government authorization, often on land Palestinians use for grazing. The Jerusalem Governorate said legalizing them would entitle the sites to government funding and infrastructure, turning previously unauthorized structures into permanent Israeli-built assets. The move sits inside a wider trend of converting outposts into legal neighborhoods of existing settlements, sometimes at a distance of several kilometers from the original settlement.
The Binyamin decision is the latest in a pattern that has accelerated since 2023, when Israeli governments began converting long-standing unauthorized outposts into legal settlements under new budgets and municipal councils. A separate cabinet decision in March 2025 split off 13 such outposts, including Alon, Haresha, Kerem Reim, Neriya, Migron, Shvut Rachel, Ovnat, Brosh Habika, Leshem, Nofei Nehemia, Tal Menashe, Ibei Hanahal, and Gvaot, into independent settlements. Each got its own municipal council and budget line, a step the Israeli watchdog Peace Now documented as part of a record year for illegal outpost construction. The pastoral outposts in the Binyamin plan follow the same template, with the legalization itself doing the work that new permits would otherwise do.
An Outpost Surge, and the Money Funding It
The Binyamin plan lands on top of an outpost count that has climbed sharply in recent years. Data published by the Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies (MADAR) shows that new settlement outposts in the West Bank averaged about eight per year between 2012 and 2022. The annual count rose to 32 in 2023, then 62 in 2024, and reached 86 in 2025. The Israeli government allocated 28 million shekels ($7.5 million) to outposts in 2023 and 75 million shekels ($20 million) in 2024, with plans to fund a total of 70 outposts. Peace Now separately documented a record 59 illegal outposts established in 2024 and what it called an all-time high for West Bank land appropriation since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993.
The funding line is the part that converts the headline numbers into ground-level change. Once legalized, an outpost’s housing, water, and road budgets flow through Israeli civilian ministries rather than the military planning body that previously oversaw them. The shift turns what were once informal settler initiatives into permanent fixtures on the Israeli state budget.
The figures, side by side:
- 2012 to 2022: about 8 outposts per year on average.
- 2023: 32 new outposts, with 28 million shekels ($7.5 million) in state funding.
- 2024: 62 new outposts, with 75 million shekels ($20 million) in state funding.
- 2025: 86 new outposts, according to MADAR’s count.
The MADAR and Peace Now numbers are produced by separate Palestinian and Israeli research bodies using slightly different definitions and counting methods, but both show the same shape, a sharp acceleration beginning in 2023. The acceleration has coincided with the expansion of powers held by far-right figures inside the Israeli government, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry and oversees the Settlements Administration. In late December 2024, Smotrich announced increased funding for a grant program that provides subsidies to settlement agricultural farms, including illegal farming outposts, and expedited the grant process. The Binyamin plan, which layers 13 new settlements on top of an existing settler footprint that grew by 86 outposts in 2025 alone, fits inside that same policy direction, a point also visible in how Israel expanded its legal reach across the West Bank.
The Oslo Frame and the Next Move Toward Area A
The Binyamin plan follows reports that settlement movements are preparing to target Area A of the West Bank. Area A is the only part of the West Bank where, under the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 and 1995, Palestinians hold full civil and security control. A move into Area A would cross a line that no previous Israeli government has formally attempted.
The Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into three administrative areas, a transitional arrangement pending a permanent-status agreement that has never been signed. Area A covers Palestinian cities and their immediate surroundings and is the only zone where Palestinians hold both civil and security control. Area B is Palestinian civil control with Israeli security control, and Area C, the largest share of the territory, is under full Israeli control, according to how the Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into three areas. Settlement construction has historically been concentrated in Area C, where Palestinian building is heavily restricted. Peace Now reported in late 2024 that settlers had begun establishing outposts in Area B for the first time in decades, with five new settlements in Area B documented in the closing months of 2024. A push into Area A would extend the same pattern into the only part of the West Bank that Palestinian authorities administer on both the civil and security sides.
The three administrative zones:
- Area A: full Palestinian civil and security control, covering Palestinian cities such as Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, and Hebron.
- Area B: Palestinian civil control with Israeli security control, making up about 21 percent of the West Bank.
- Area C: full Israeli control, accounting for roughly 60 percent of the West Bank and the bulk of settlement construction.
The Jerusalem Governorate framed the Binyamin plan in those terms, saying the expansion would undermine the prospects of establishing a geographically contiguous Palestinian state. That phrase has appeared in Palestinian statements for years, and what changed in 2025 and 2026 is the scale of construction along the corridors any future Palestinian state would need to link its territory. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank illegal under international law, a position reaffirmed in repeated United Nations votes and statements. The Binyamin plan does not formally touch Area A, but it lines up the corridor that any future move into Area A would most plausibly use, a dynamic that also shaped Egypt’s condemnation of Israeli land registration in the West Bank.
On the Ground in the West Bank
The numbers in the cabinet decision do not capture what the expansion means in daily life. Palestinian villages across the central highlands sit alongside the corridors the Binyamin plan targets, and the years-long acceleration of outpost construction has coincided with a steady rise in settler attacks, home demolitions, and forced displacements.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented more than 830 Palestinians injured by Israeli settlers in settler attacks in 2025, an average of two per day, according to OCHA’s January 2026 West Bank situation update. In one two-week reporting period in late 2025 and early January 2026, OCHA recorded the demolition of 50 Palestinian-owned structures across Area C and East Jerusalem for lacking Israeli-issued building permits. The same agency documented the forced eviction of two Palestinian families from their homes in the Batn al Hawa area of Silwan, in East Jerusalem, in favor of an Israeli settler organization. In Khirbet Yanun in Nablus governorate, the six last remaining families, who had lived there for more than 60 years, were displaced due to settler attacks. Across the territory, more than 700,000 Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, on land Israel captured in the 1967 war.
The Oslo-era administrative split was supposed to be a transitional arrangement pending a permanent settlement. With the Binyamin plan layered on top of the legalization of outposts, the corridor expansions, and the reported plans for Area A, that transitional frame has not produced a final status in more than three decades. The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate’s warning that the plan would undermine the prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state is, in that sense, less a forecast than a description of where the territory already sits.
The Jerusalem Governorate’s statement framed the cabinet decision as violations of international law and called for international intervention. The international community, through repeated United Nations votes and statements, has long held that settlements in occupied territory are illegal under international law. Domestic political calculations in Israel, particularly with Knesset elections approaching, are likely shaping the timing, the governorate added. The cabinet decision does not require any of those positions to change for the construction to begin.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the Binyamin area and what does the new plan cover?
The Binyamin regional area sits in the central occupied West Bank, along the central north-south artery Route 60. The cabinet decision approved 13 new settlements in this area, with a first phase of four to six new sites and investments worth millions of shekels. The plan also legalizes several existing pastoral outposts that were established without formal authorization.
Why does Route 60 matter to the settlement plan?
Route 60 is the main north-south road through the West Bank, linking Palestinian cities including Nablus, Ramallah, and Bethlehem. It also connects major Israeli settlements. The Jerusalem Governorate said the plan is designed to link settlement blocs and tighten Israeli control over strategic hilltops along this corridor. The route effectively becomes the spine of an Israeli-built footprint through the central highlands.
What is Area A and why is targeting it significant?
Area A is one of three administrative zones the Oslo Accords created in the West Bank. It is the only zone where Palestinians hold full civil and security control, covering Palestinian cities and their immediate surroundings. Settlement construction has historically been concentrated in Area C, the larger zone under full Israeli control. Reports that settlement movements are preparing to target Area A mark a step beyond that pattern.
How many settlers live in the West Bank?
More than 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, on land Israel captured in the 1967 war. The expansion has accelerated since 2023. MADAR data show the number of new outposts rising from about eight per year between 2012 and 2022, to 32 in 2023, 62 in 2024, and 86 in 2025.
How has the international community responded?
The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate called the cabinet decision a dangerous escalation and a violation of international law, and called for international intervention. The international community, through the United Nations, has long held that settlements in occupied territory are illegal under international law. The cabinet decision was approved without any international reversal of that position in the immediate aftermath.
