Israel approves new settlement on UNESCO site near Bethlehem

Israel has approved a new settlement on a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, its far-right finance minister said on Wednesday.

Bezalel Smotrich, who also heads civil affairs at the defense ministry, said his office had “completed its work and published a plan for the new Nahal Heletz settlement in Gush Etzion,” a bloc of settlements south of Jerusalem.

All of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of whether they have Israeli planning permission.

“No anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist decision will stop the development of settlements,” Smotrich, who lives in a settlement, posted on X.

“We will continue to fight against the dangerous project of creating a Palestinian state by creating facts on the ground.”

The Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now denounced the plan, calling it a “wholesale attack” on an area “renowned for its ancient terraces and sophisticated irrigation systems, evidence of thousands of years of human activity.”

The approval also comes at a time of heightened tensions in the West Bank and east Jerusalem over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, which has been raging since October 7.

Over the years, dozens of unauthorized settlements have sprung up in the West Bank.

Excluding east Jerusalem, some 490,000 Israeli settlers now live in the territory, alongside some three million Palestinians.