Officials from Palestine, the United Nations and other countries were swift in condemnation after the occupying State of Israel announced plans that would further displace Palestinians in the West Bank. This latest move was in addition to the continued killings by Israeli Defense Forces of Palestinians.
In violation of international law, Israel’s security cabinet signed off on plans to legalize 19 settlements in the West Bank.
In a Dec. 12 statement, Moayyad Shaaban of the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission described the move as another step in the erasure of Palestinian geography in favor of the Israeli colonial settlement project and a dangerous escalation exposing the Israeli government’s true intentions, which he said are annexation and apartheid.
“This move comes as part of a deliberate policy led by the government of colonizers headed by Netanyahu and Smotrich, aimed at legalizing colonial outposts and transforming them into officially recognized colonies, thereby consolidating Israel’s permanent control over the occupied Palestinian territories,” he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Both Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) condemned Israel’s settlement plan.
In a statement posted by Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Qatar considered the plan “a flagrant violation of international legitimacy resolutions” and “a blatant infringement on the rights of the Palestinian people.”
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs underscores the necessity for the international community to shoulder its legal and moral responsibilities in compelling Israel to cease its settlement policy in the occupied Palestinian territories,” the statement said.
The UAE called the move a “blatant violation of international law.” Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs “warned that any attempt to annex the West Bank is categorically rejected, as it undermines the foundations of the two-state solution,” according to a statement posted on the ministry’s website.
During a United Nations Security Council meeting on the settlements, held Dec. 16, many of the member states condemned Israel’s actions. “Violation of international law must cease immediately,” China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong said.
The U.S., however, refused to condemn Israel.
Between Jan. 1, 2024, and Nov. 30, 2025, more than 40,000 Palestinians in the West Bank were displaced, according to the latest monthly report on the West Bank, published Dec. 17 by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The majority were displaced from the Tulkarm refugee camp, the Nur Shams refugee camp and the Jenin refugee camp.
The Israeli military has also moved forward on plans to demolish 25 residential buildings in the Nur Shams camp, amid reports that Israeli authorities are planning to build 9,000 new housing units in a settlement in East Jerusalem.
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, tracked 44 Palestinian communities in the West Bank that have been entirely expelled since October 7, 2023.
“Satellite imagery speaks clearly: even before this latest order, some 48% of the total buildings in Nur Shams Camp had been damaged or destroyed.
This new demolition order fits the pattern we have seen too often this year, with Israeli forces destroying homes to enable their long-term control over the camps in the northern West Bank, permanently altering their topography,” Roland Friedrich, director of affairs in the West Bank for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said in a statement posted on X.
“Justified through ‘military necessity,’ these demolitions make no one safer. The forced displacement of the more than 32,000 Palestine Refugees in the northern West Bank must not become permanent,” he added. “Residents have anxiously waited for eleven months to return home. With each blow of the bulldozers, this hope becomes ever more distant.”
During a UN Security Council briefing, Ramiz Alakbarov, UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said the escalating violence and tensions in the West Bank are cause for alarm and condemned “relentless Israeli settlement expansion,” according to a UN news story.
“I urge Israel to abide by its obligations under international law, recalling the International Court of Justice advisory opinion of 19 July 2024, which obliges Israel to cease all new settlement activities, evacuate settlers, and end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory promptly,” he said.
With the goal of driving Palestinians from the land, Israeli settlers are physically assaulting Palestinians, raiding homes and communities, committing arson, driving shepherds and farmers away from their fields, stealing and killing livestock, destroying crops, stealing equipment and personal belongings and blocking road access, according to B’Tselem.
OCHA’s monthly report on the West Bank stated that from Jan. 1, 2024, to Nov. 30, 2025, 724 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers, including 142 children, and 6,867 Palestinians have been injured.
In 2025 alone, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 54 Palestinian children in the West Bank, according to a report by Defense for Children Palestine, published Dec. 16.
Two Palestinian teenagers were recently killed, following a slew of killings by Israeli forces across the West Bank.
During a raid, the Israeli military killed 16-year-old Ammar Sabah on Dec. 15 in the Palestinian town Tuqu’, located southeast of Bethlehem in the West Bank. After his funeral the next day, an Israeli settler fatally shot 16-year-old Mahib Jibril.
As illegal settler violence persists, Israeli forces continue launching violent raids, arresting Palestinians and demolishing buildings across the West Bank.