Palestinian officials condemned it. A dramatic new settlement movement It took steps to retroactively authorize three outposts in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The move is likely to further heighten tensions in the region, where violence has surged since hostilities began in the Gaza Strip on October 7.
Palestinians claim the West Bank as part of their desired future state. The settlements are widely considered illegal under international law, but Israel disagrees.
The three illegal outposts, legalized under Israeli law, are described as new neighborhoods in existing settlements. They are located in sensitive areas of the Jordan Valley and near the southern city of Hebron.
Additionally, the Israeli anti-settler watchdog Peace Now said on Thursday that Israeli authorities had approved or pushed ahead with plans to build 5,295 housing units in dozens of settlements.
This week it also emerged that the Israeli government's top planning committee had approved the largest land seizure in the West Bank in three decades.
In the Jordan Valley, approximately 12,700 dunams (5 square miles) have been confiscated and declared Israeli land. This year, the scope of land declarations has reached its peak, with a total of 23,700 dunams affected.
Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeina said the new announcement confirmed Israel's “extremist government is tied to right-wing war and settlement policies.”
He said recent measures “will not bring security and peace to anyone” and were aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state geographically adjacent to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.
Last week, Israel's security cabinet decided to retroactively approve five settlement outposts built without official government approval.
The United Nations, Britain and other countries have condemned the move, saying it undermines hopes for a two-state solution, the internationally accepted peace formula that would establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“Israel must stop expanding illegal settlements and hold those responsible for extremist settler violence accountable,” the Foreign Office said.
“The UK's priority is to bring the Gaza conflict to a sustainable end as soon as possible and to secure lasting peace in the Middle East through an irreversible path to a two-state solution.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office did not immediately respond to the BBC's request for comment on the country's overall strategy in the West Bank.
But Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right Israeli minister who lives in a West Bank settlement, welcomed the latest move. “We are building good land and preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state,” he said on social media platform X on Wednesday.
Excluding annexed East Jerusalem, about 500,000 settlers live in the West Bank alongside 3 million Palestinians. Last year, Mr. Smotrich ordered government ministries to double the number of settlers to 1 million.
Since Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, successive Israeli administrations have allowed settlements to grow. But expansion has accelerated dramatically since Mr Netanyahu took power in late 2022 as head of a hard-line, pro-settler coalition.
Last month, Peace Now released a recording of a speech Mr. Smotrich gave to the Religious Zionist Party in which he proposed transferring settlement administration from the military to civilian officials, building a separate road bypass system for settlers, expanding agricultural outposts and cracking down on unauthorized Palestinian construction.
Peace Now warned that the plan would irreversibly change the way the West Bank is governed and lead to a “de facto annexation”.
