Peace Now report: 2025 witnessed largest West Bank settlement expansion
Titled Annus Mirabilis: Actions by the Israeli Government to Annex the West Bank, 2023–2025, the report by Peace Now and Kerem Navot concludes that the Israeli government has advanced de facto annexation of the West Bank at an unprecedented pace, WAFA reported.
The report suggests that the measures advanced by the Israeli government form a single, systematic policy geared towards deepening Israeli control over the West Bank.
Instead of focusing on isolated developments such as settlement construction, outpost authorisation, or state land declarations, the report, for the first time, consolidates all government actions and demonstrates that they constitute a single policy, WAFA reported.
These include structural governance changes, the transfer of civilian powers, settlement expansion, new outpost establishment, expulsion of Palestinian communities, land takeovers, significant infrastructure investment, and changes to the land regime.
Key findings:
*185 new outposts established
*118 Palestinian shepherding communities and shepherding clusters expelled
*102 new settlements established through the legalization of outposts or by granting existing neighbourhoods independent settlement status
*40,064 housing units advanced in settlements
*Farm outposts now effectively control more than 1.1 million dunams (1 dunam= 0.25 acres), including approximately 750,000 dunams seized since the current government took office
*At least 223 kilometres of new roads opened across the West Bank
*Settlers took control of at least 11,520 dunams through agricultural cultivation
*25,959 dunams declared as state land