The Israeli Cabinet has recognized 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced on Sunday.
Smotrich, who also serves as the chairman of the country’s Religious Zionist Party, has been a longtime leading advocate for the settlements that are deemed illegal under international law. In August, Smotrich unveiled the Cabinet’s support for the “E1 settlement plan” connecting the Maale Adumim settlement to East Jerusalem.
The Cabinet’s greenlighting of the new settlements includes the Ganim and Kadim settlements, which are northern West Bank areas that have been vacated by Israel for two decades since Isreal agreed to its 2005 disengagement from Gaza. Smotrich said the Cabinet’s approval of the two settlements marks the correction of what he called a “painful injustice.”
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