While Palestinians are being killed in Gaza as they desperately try to reach distribution hubs for food and humanitarian aid, Israel continues to double down on illegal land grabbing in the West Bank. Recently, Israeli lawmakers approved the construction of 22 new settlements as part of an unprecedented expansion into Palestinian lands.
Since taking office, the current Israeli government has approved 49 official settlements and begun legalizing seven unauthorized outposts, according to Peace Now, a movement of Israeli citizens that opposes the settlements.
Peace Now argues that the decision to establish the new settlements will dramatically reshape the West Bank and entrench the occupation even further. Furthermore, since its inception in 1948—and before the land grabs—a complete takeover by Israel has been a primary aim of the occupier state.
With the settlement expansion and war expansion is the broader objective to establish “Greater Israel” and to control and reshape the Middle East.
Forewarnings to the U.S. and Israel about their fate are on record by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and his teacher, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of Nation of Islam.
“The war in the Middle East will get very, very bloody,” cautioned Minister Farrakhan, in his 2024 Saviours’ Day message titled, “What Does Allah The Great Mahdi and The Great Messiah Have To Say About The War In The Middle East?”
Minister Farrakhan warned that Israel and America will lose in the region and pay a price for their violations. “What I gave is prophecy that you can find in the Bible and the Qur’an that Israel is not going to stay;
America is not going to stay in the Middle East, and when that war triggers all of the countries that it will trigger, the war of Armageddon will be all over the earth,” he warned.
“The Israeli government no longer pretends otherwise: the annexation of the Occupied Territories and expansion of settlements is its central goal,” said Peace Now, in a statement.
Settlements are state-approved Israeli communities in occupied territory, and outposts are “settler-initiated” communities often built without government approval, but in many cases are legalized later. However, both constitute illegal encroachment of Palestinian lands, which international law prohibits.
According to Al Jazeera, “Israel says its settlement expansion is to ‘prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state’ as it announced 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu says Israeli officials are daring the world to stop them.”
The international humanitarian organization Amnesty International also condemned the latest moves by Israel. “The Israeli military has displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians by destroying homes and essential civilian infrastructure in Jenin.
And Tulkarem refugee camps rendering them uninhabitable, as part of its ongoing brutal military operation in the occupied West Bank,” the group stated June 5 on its website.
“The Israeli army has deployed tanks, carried out air strikes, destroyed buildings, dug up roads and infrastructure, and imposed extensive restrictions on freedom of movement through checkpoints and roadblocks.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, between January 21 and June 4, the Israeli forces have killed at least 80 Palestinians, including 14 children, in the northern West Bank, including Nablus,” noted amnesty.org.
Nearly a decade ago in 2016, the United Nations Security Council reiterated that Israel’s settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967—including East Jerusalem—have no legal legitimacy and represent a blatant violation of international law. The council called the settlements a major obstacle to the—all but fizzled out—two-state solution based on internationally recognized borders.
In a 14–0 vote at the time, with the United States abstaining, the council adopted Resolution 2334 demanding that Israel immediately and completely halt all settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Fast forward to 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest judicial body of the United Nations, issued an advisory opinion declaring Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories unlawful. The court went so far as to demand “as rapidly as possible” the dismantling of the occupation and the ending of illegal settlements.
Meanwhile, the occupier state is doubling down on building new settlements and executing a brutal war of genocide in Gaza, also with an aim to reoccupy the enclave.
Along with that, Israel has also renewed missile attacks on the Southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, under the guise of targeting an alleged drone-making facility of Hezbollah. Israel has conducted multiple airstrikes in Lebanon since a ceasefire was brokered in November 2024.
According to the Iranian news service Press TV, Israel is threatening to intensify its attacks on Lebanon. “Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also condemned the Israeli strikes, calling them a ‘systematic and deliberate assault on Lebanon’s security, stability and economy,’”
Reported presstv.ir. The website also reported on June 6 that the prime minister “demanded that the international community should ‘shoulder its responsibility to deter Israel and ensure its full withdrawal from Lebanese territories.’”
Israel is also still striking areas of Syria. “Over the past six months, Israeli forces have launched more than 200 air, drone or artillery attacks across Syria, averaging an assault roughly every three to four days, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED),” Al Jazeera reported on June 4.
Demands are growing among Israel’s allies against its West Bank settlement enterprise and the war; however, the Israeli government is making clear—“again and without restraint”—that it prefers deepening the occupation and advancing de facto annexation over pursuing peace.
“Israel is all about showing [the world] who calls the shots. They are saying … you can condemn us all you want, but in the end, you will bow down to us and not the other way around,” said Diana Buttu, a legal scholar and political analyst focused on Israel and Palestine, reported Al Jazeera.
The decision to build 22 settlements is the largest land seizure since the Oslo Accords in 1993. The Accords aimed at creating a Palestinian state, including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.
The U.S. vetoed a Gaza ceasefire decided on by the majority of the UN Security Council members on June 4. The 15-member council voted 14-1 in favor of a ceasefire, but America used its veto power to kill the resolution.
The veto was the fifth time that the U.S. has blocked a ceasefire in Gaza since the war broke out in October 2023. The move further isolates Israel’s top supporter, at a time when Israel is being increasingly criticized by European allies for its conduct in the war.
“There are moments when silence is more eloquent than language. Today is one of those,” observed Amar Bendjama, Algeria’s UN ambassador. He was equating the U.S. veto as silence. “But silence cannot defend the dead; it cannot hold the hand of the dying; it cannot confront the machinery of injustice,” he added.
Therefore, “we must speak—loudly,” he proclaimed—not to state a position, “but for the sake of memory, of morality and of the human spirit.” The resolution—“even in its obstruction”—is a mirror that “reflects the agony of multilateralism” and “reveals why the Israeli occupier continues its crimes,” he said.
“Israel’s deadly military operation in the occupied West Bank, unfolding in the horrific shadow of its ongoing genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip, has had catastrophic consequences for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians who are facing a rapidly escalating crisis with no foreseeable prospects of return.
Unlawful transfer of protected persons is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a war crime,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, noted amnesty.org. Rosas called for an immediate halt to the “illegal practices.
“These actions are part of a wider pattern of unlawful Israeli policies and practices to dispossess, dominate and oppress Palestinians in the West Bank under Israel’s ruthless system of apartheid,” Rosas added.
Final Call Staff contributed to this report.