World

Israel’s expanding settlement enterprise in the West Bank

JERUSALEM: Over the past six decades, Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank have been a steady tenet of successive Israeli governments — but nothing compares to their exploding pace over the past few years. Almost half of the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory — all illegal under international law — were established since 2023, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Israeli rights group Peace Now, the International Crisis Group (ICG) and the UN humanitarian office