Minister Moayyad Shaban, head of the Palestinian Authority’s Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission, condemned the Israeli occupation cabinet’s decision to approve the establishment and legalization of 19 new illegal colonies across the occupied West Bank.
He described the move as “another step in the race to erase Palestinian geography in favor of the colonial project”, warning that it represents a dangerous escalation and exposes the true intentions of the current Israeli government to entrench annexation, apartheid, and the full Judaization of Palestinian land.
In a statement issued Friday, Shaban stressed that the decision is part of a “systematic policy led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, aimed at transforming illegal colonial outposts into official colonies, thereby cementing permanent Israeli control over Palestinian territory.”
He noted that the move constitutes a blatant challenge to international law and UN Security Council resolutions, particularly Resolution 2334, and sounded the alarm over the future of the West Bank, which faces a deliberate campaign of dispossession designed to fragment Palestinian presence into isolated, besieged enclaves.
Shaaban explained that the approval of 19 colonies is not an isolated event but part of a clear escalation in Israel’s colonial project.
He recalled that on March 23, 2025, Israel announced the separation of 13 colonial neighborhoods from larger colonies, granting them independent administrative and security powers.
This was followed on May 29, 2025, by a decision to convert 22 illegal outposts into recognized colonies — the most extensive “legalization” of colonial sites in decades.
The latest decision, he said, confirms a strategic plan to impose new realities on the ground before any political solution can be reached, effectively eliminating the possibility of a geographically contiguous Palestinian state.
According to Shaban, the expansion of colonies and their connection through exclusive road and security networks serves only the colonizers, while subjecting Palestinian life to what he described as “the logic of colonial madness.”
He emphasized that the Commission, in cooperation with official and popular institutions, will continue legal, diplomatic, and field efforts to expose Israel’s colonial crimes before the international community.
He called on the United Nations and the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to act decisively in order to prevent this expansion from advancing.
Shaban concluded by affirming that the Palestinian people remain steadfast in their land and historical rights, declaring: “No colonial project, no matter how extreme or aggressive, will intimidate us or uproot our presence.”
