Israel’s security cabinet has approved new measures that deepen its grip on the occupied West Bank, loosening restrictions on settler land purchases and extending Israeli enforcement powers over Palestinians, according to Israeli media reports.
The West Bank is among the territories that the Palestinians seek for a future independent state. Much of it is under Israeli military control, with limited Palestinian self-rule in some areas run by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA).
Citing statements by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz, Israeli news sites Ynet and Haaretz said the measures included scrapping decades-old regulations that prevent Jewish private citizens buying land in the West Bank.
They were also reported to include allowing Israeli authorities to administer some religious sites, and expand supervision and enforcement in areas under PA administration in matters of environmental hazards, water offences and damage to archaeological sites.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the new measures were dangerous, illegal and tantamount to de-facto annexation.
The Israeli ministers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The new measures come three days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet in Washington with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump has ruled out Israeli annexation of the West Bank but his administration has not sought to curb Israel's accelerated settlement building, which the Palestinians say denies them a potential state by eating away at its territory.
Netanyahu, who is facing an election later this year, deems the establishment of any Palestinian state a security threat.
His ruling coalition includes many pro-settler members who want Israel to annex the West Bank, land captured in the 1967 Middle East war to which Israel claims biblical and historical ties.
The International Court of Justice declared Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory illegal in a landmark opinion in July 2024 and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, illegal Israeli settlers injured at least five Palestinians late Saturday in a series of coordinated attacks in the West Bank.
According to the Palestinian Authority's Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, illegal settlers carried out around 4,723 attacks across the West Bank in 2025, resulting in the killing of 14 Palestinians and the forced displacement of 13 Bedouin communities comprising 1,090 people.
Official Palestinian figures show that the number of illegal settlers in the West Bank reached approximately 770,000 by the end of 2024, living in more than 180 settlements and 256 settlement outposts.
Israel has intensified its military operations in the West Bank since launching its war on the Gaza Strip on Oct. 8, 2023, including killings, arrests, forced displacement and settlement expansion, a trajectory Palestinians say is aimed at paving the way for the formal annexation of the occupied territory.
More than 1,112 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, about 11,500 wounded, and more than 21,000 detained during that period, according to Palestinian estimates.
