G7 foreign ministers condemned on Thursday the move by Israel to legalize five outposts in the West Bank, and slammed its decision to expand existing settlements and establish new ones.
Settlement expansion has increased sharply since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022, at the helm of a hardline pro-settler coalition.
“We, the G7 Foreign Ministers… join the UN and the European Union in condemning the announcement by Israeli Finance Minister (Bezalel) Smotrich that five outposts are to be legalized in the West Bank,” read a statement that also rejected Israel’s decision to declare over 1,270 hectares (3,100 acres) as “state lands.”
It called the latter “the largest such declaration of state land since the Oslo Accords.”
The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven rich nations also criticized Israel’s decision “to expand existing settlements in the occupied West Bank by 5,295 new housing units and to establish three new settlements.”
They called Israel’s settlement program “inconsistent with international law, and counterproductive to the cause of peace.”
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and established settlements that are deemed illegal under international law.
Israel distinguishes between wildcat outposts, built without the government’s permission, and state-approved settlements.
Not counting annexed east Jerusalem, more than 490,000 settlers live in the West Bank alongside three million Palestinians.
Smotrich announced the legalization of the five outposts on June 28, as minister in charge of civil management of the West Bank.
According to Israeli media, Smotrich obtained the approvals as part of a bargain within the government, in particular in exchange for the release of funds collected by Israel and returned to the Palestinian Authority.
The G7 cited those revenues in its statement: “We take note of the latest transfers of parts of clearance revenues to the Palestinian Authority,” it said.
“But we urge Israel to release all withheld clearance revenues” and to “remove or relax measures that exacerbate the economic situation” in the West Bank and “ensure that correspondent banking services between Israeli and Palestinian banks remain in place.”
With AFP
