77 Years After the Nakba: Netanyahu's Plan to Seize 60% of the West Bank and Occupied Jerusalem

As Palestinians mark 77 years since the Nakba on May 15, 2025, the Israeli Occupation government has set in motion one of its most sweeping and dangerous plans to seize control of the West Bank and Occupied Jerusalem.

Without waiting for a U.S. peace plan or Trump-style “Deal of the Century,” “Israel” is unilaterally pushing to impose sovereignty over 60% of the territory it occupied in 1967.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid it bare on May 11: “We will annex 30% of West Bank areas to Israel” this year. There will be no Palestinian state.”

Backing this up, the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved a bill on May 7 that officially rebrands the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria” in all Israeli legislation—an attempt to cement settlements as legitimate.

Another bill proposes handing over control of archaeological and historical sites in the West Bank from the Israeli military to the government’s Antiquities Authority, effectively stripping the army of oversight and further entrenching Israeli presence.

The Details of the ‘Plan’

Despite rumors of friction with U.S. President Donald Trump, Netanyahu insisted his stance hasn’t changed since the Trump-era annexation plans. “You won’t be hearing about a Palestinian state,” he told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and War Committee.

Back in 2020, Trump unveiled a so-called peace plan that offered a heavily restricted version of a Palestinian state while greenlighting Israeli annexation of West Bank settlements and rejecting the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Now, the Israeli War Cabinet has taken a bold step further. On May 11, it approved a decision allowing settlers to register ownership of Palestinian land in Area C—60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control since 1967. This marks the first time “Israel” has allowed such registration.

The move effectively opens the door for formal annexation. While Palestinians are often barred from registering their own land due to “ownership proof” restrictions, settlers can now claim land—sometimes without documentation—in defiance of international law.

Adding to the tension, the Israeli War Cabinet also instructed security agencies to crack down on the Palestinian Authority’s recent efforts to document ownership of the same lands under the Oslo framework.

In practice, the decision paves the way for buying and selling lands seized by the military or occupied by settlers through illegal outposts. Authority over land registration now lies with the Israeli army and the Civil Administration.

Once land is mapped and registered in “Israel’s official land registry” (the Tabu), reversing these moves will be nearly impossible. Any land without registered ownership will automatically fall under Israeli control.

Sensitive Zones

Calling it a “practical plan to annex the West Bank,” Israeli far-right Finance Minister and Minister of Settlement Affairs Bezalel Smotrich hailed the recent Cabinet decision as part of what he called a “sovereignty and normalization revolution” underway in what “Israel” refers to as “Judea and Samaria.”

“For the first time,” he declared, “Israel is assuming full responsibility over these areas as part of a permanent sovereignty. We’re creating legal certainty and securing land reserves to expand settlements.”

War Minister Israel Katz praised the move to block Palestinians from registering their land—while granting settlers the green light to seize it—as a direct boost to settlement growth. He called the decision “revolutionary,” adding that it “does justice for Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria and will lead to its strengthening and expansion,” as per Haaretz.

Smotrich went even further, saying that the registration of settler outposts and unrecognized settlements “will pave the way to bring one million more settlers, cutting off Israel from the threat of a terrorist Palestinian state.”

The move also targets highly sensitive areas, including Islamic Waqf land around the Umayyad Palaces—one of the most contested sites in Occupied Jerusalem. According to Waqf officials, “Israel” is now seeking to register these religious endowments under Jewish ownership as part of a larger campaign to erase their identity and forcibly Judaize the area.

Back in November 2024, Smotrich told a meeting of the Religious Zionist Party that a Trump victory in the U.S. presidential elections would be a “game-changer.” He predicted that 2025 would become “the year of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.”

‘Annexing Quietly, Expanding Steadily’

In a report published on May 13, 2025, Yedioth Ahronoth described “how Israel is quietly moving toward de facto annexation in the West Bank,” warning that the government is fast-tracking settlement expansion laws—effectively eliminating any chance for future peace.

The new legislation allows Israeli settlers to purchase land not only in the occupied West Bank but also within Palestinian cities and towns. It also permits the establishment of settlements without oversight from the Israeli military authorities.

The paper noted that these developments mark a new phase in a broader campaign led by Bezalel Smotrich over the past two years. The plan aims to expand agricultural outposts, revoke Palestinian land permits, and reclassify Palestinian-owned land as settler property.

The main obstacle settlers face, the paper said, is privately owned Palestinian land; parcels with documented ownership dating back to the Jordanian era.

According to a separate Haaretz analysis, published April 20, 2025, Netanyahu’s ministers are working to cement “Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank,” and that the government is openly encouraging annexation, using every possible tool.

Smotrich, meanwhile, has been circulating images of himself under the slogan: “The Settlement Revolution 2025,” gearing up for the next round of elections.

Following the formation of the current government, a new “Settlements Administration” was established within the Ministry of War at Smotrich’s request. Its purpose: to transfer administrative control over settler life from military to civilian authorities.

Legal experts say this step amounts to de facto annexation, as it exempts settlers from military regulations in the occupied territories and treats them like citizens living within “Israel” proper in terms of development, services, and resource allocation.

Repercussions

Palestinian journalist and analyst Abdel Ghani al-Shami called the ongoing Israeli Occupation violations in the West Bank “the mother of all catastrophes.” He warned that following the destruction of Gaza, “Israel” now has its sights set on the West Bank in a bid to erase the idea of a Palestinian state once and for all.

“The Israeli government is racing against time to impose Jewish sovereignty over all of historic Palestine,” he told Al-Estiklal. “They want to eliminate any hope of a state, even on the land occupied in 1967, which is the minimal demand of peace advocates.”

“For Netanyahu, numbers and borders no longer matter. After flattening Gaza, his focus has shifted to the heart of the conflict Occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank, where he is working to impose Jewish control, whether through direct or indirect occupation, to fulfill the dream of Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates,” al-shami added.

“These violations are no longer secret. They’re playing out on the ground while Palestinians mark the Nakba. This is no longer a single catastrophe, it’s a series of catastrophes, as the Zionist project expands day by day.”

He warned that next year, Palestinians may commemorate the Nakba under even graver circumstances. “We might see not just the full re-occupation of Palestine but parts of neighboring Arab countries. We’ll need a term more devastating than ‘Nakba’ to describe what’s coming.”

Palestinian analyst Nawaf al-Zaru also sounded the alarm, pointing to a dangerous Zionist blueprint aimed at settling two million Israelis across the West Bank by the end of 2025.

In an article published May 12 by the Natour Center for Studies and Research, al-Zaru said the plan, led by Smotrich and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, seeks to accelerate the colonization of the West Bank and double the settler population as quickly as possible.

Far-right paper Makor Rishon claimed in January 2025 that securing a Jewish majority in the West Bank is the key to “Israel’s survival” and the resolution of its “conflict” with Palestinians.

Attorney Michael Sfard, a specialist in international human rights law and the laws of war, told Haaretz, on May 12, that the decision violates the fundamental principle that bars occupying powers from making long-term changes in occupied territory.

“There’s no chance that any Palestinian will have their rights recognized,” he said, adding that the decision will lead to “a massive land grab by Israel of all lands in Area C.”

“It is no coincidence that occupiers are prohibited from conducting land registration,” he added. “The ban stems from the fact that under occupation, it is impossible to carry out such a process freely.”

Yohanan Tzoreff, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and an expert on Palestinian affairs, said these steps amount to informal annexation.

He warned that the cumulative effect of these measures could isolate “Israel” diplomatically. “Eventually, Israel will be seen as a country that doesn’t want peace. 

“Right-wing governments have shown little interest in coexistence. Even [Donald] Trump understands there’s a problem. We’re at a dangerous historical moment. If we don’t recognize that we’re part of this region and need to integrate into it, the consequences will be severe.”

The Scale of the Catastrophe

According to Haaretz, publications from Israel’s Higher Planning Council show that 4,427 settlement projects were approved across the West Bank in 2022. That number surged to 12,349 in 2023. After a slight drop to 9,971 projects in 2024, a staggering 14,335 settlement plans were submitted in just the first three months of 2025.

The Israeli Occupation’s 2024/2025 state budget allocated hundreds of millions of shekels to West Bank settlements. In July 2024, the Knesset Finance Committee approved an additional 302 million shekels for the Ministry of Settlement Affairs. Another 200 million shekels were added in March 2025.

A joint report by Kerem Navot and Peace Now reveals that settlement outposts currently control nearly 786,000 dunams (4.04 dunams are 1 acre)—about 14 percent of the total area of the West Bank. Remarkably, 70 percent of this expansion occurred in just the past two and a half years.

Excluding occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank is now home to roughly 490,000 settlers living in settlements considered illegal under international law. In contrast, about three million Palestinians reside in the same territory.

On May 6, 2025, Israeli far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the imminent approval of settlement projects in the E1 area, which would effectively sever the northern West Bank from the south. “This is how we kill the Palestinian state,” he declared at the Settlement Conference hosted by the right-wing Makor Rishon newspaper in the Ofra settlement.

“We’re officially working on approving the plans,” Smotrich said. “This is how we will effectively eliminate the Palestinian state.”

Since the start of 2025, the government has approved the construction of 15,000 new housing units in settlements and committed seven billion shekels to building roads in the West Bank—measures intended to support the arrival of one million new settlers.

The E1 area spans 12 square kilometers and falls under the administrative jurisdiction of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement. While plans for building in E1 date back to the Rabin government, they have been repeatedly delayed for political reasons since 2005.

Smotrich also revealed that 24 lawyers are currently working within the Settlement Administration to accelerate the legal status of outposts, noting that 86 agricultural-style settlement outposts now control half a million dunams of land.

Coinciding with the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics released data offering a stark picture of the current humanitarian reality in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

It reported that the Palestinian population has grown nearly tenfold since the Nakba in 1948, reaching approximately 15.2 million globally by mid-2025, more than half of whom live outside historic Palestine.

Roughly 7.4 million Palestinians reside within historic Palestine (Israeli Occupation, the West Bank, and Gaza), nearly equal to the number of Jewish Israelis.

The Palestinian population in the West Bank stands at around 3.4 million, while Gaza’s population has dropped by 10 percent, now estimated at 2.1 million, due to the ongoing Israeli Occupation’s genocide since October 2023.

As for the settlement landscape, there are now 551 Israeli sites—including settlements, outposts, and military bases—housing over 770,000 settlers. Nearly half of them reside in the Occupied Jerusalem governorate alone. In 2024, Israeli authorities seized more than 46,000 dunams of Palestinian land.