Israel quietly greenlights 34 new communities in Judea and Samaria

The most consequential detail may be buried in the classified annex: Infrastructure for electricity and water would reportedly be allowed to move forward even before the land-regulation process is completed.

By Shmuli Volkin, Jewish Breaking News

Israel’s security cabinet quietly approved the establishment of 34 new communities in Judea and Samaria in what Hebrew reports describe as the largest single approval of its kind ever passed in one cabinet session.

The decision, reported first by i24NEWS and echoed by Srugim, would bring the total number of approved communities to 103 from 69, with some of the new sites reportedly slated for remote areas in northern Samaria that even the army reaches only infrequently.

According to the report, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, who was present at the meeting, did not flatly oppose the move but warned about manpower limits and urged a phased rollout rather than opening so many sites at once. That position was not adopted.

Two of the communities named in the report, Noya and Emek Dotan, are said to be planned inside Palestinian enclaves between Areas A and B, with Emek Dotan intended to link Sa-Nur, Homesh and Shavei Shomron.

The most consequential detail may be buried in the classified annex: Infrastructure for electricity and water would reportedly be allowed to move forward even before the land-regulation process is completed, a precedent-setting step that could accelerate facts on the ground well before the usual legal and planning stages are finished.

The report says the decision was kept under tight classification in part to avoid U.S. pressure during the Iran campaign; that sensitivity tracks with Reuters reporting from February that the Trump administration had reiterated its opposition to Israeli annexation moves in Judea and Samaria.

Defense Minister Israel Katz and Minister in the Defense Ministry Bezalel Smotrich did not comment in the report.