Israel's cabinet is expected to approve a plan on Thursday (11 June) to allocate around one billion shekels ($338 million) for settlement development in the West Bank, according to reports and anti-settlement campaigners.
The funding would support infrastructure projects, including roads, water connections, sewage systems and temporary housing, at dozens of settlement sites that have already received government approval.
Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said the move would effectively advance the establishment of 61 settlements approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government over the past three years. The organisation said the plan would bypass the standard settlement planning process.
The initiative is being promoted by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right advocate of settlement expansion who has previously said he wants to "bury" the idea of a Palestinian state.
A spokesperson for Smotrich said the cabinet vote would strengthen settlements but argued the sites were "not new settlements" and already existed.
According to the cabinet agenda, ministers are expected to discuss the formalisation of temporary settlement sites in the West Bank. Netanyahu's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The proposal comes as international scrutiny of Israeli policies in the West Bank intensifies. On Wednesday (10 June), Amnesty International accused Israel of accelerating a campaign of displacement and annexation in the territory.
"Over the past three and a half years Israeli authorities have accelerated a state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, uprooting, dispossessing and forcibly transferring Palestinian communities," Amnesty Secretary General Agnès Callamard said.
The rights group said settlement expansion, land seizures and settler violence were increasingly forcing Palestinians from their homes. Citing UN data, Amnesty said at least 117 Bedouin and herding communities had experienced full or partial displacement between January 2023 and April 2026.
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Most countries and UN bodies consider the settlements illegal under international law, a position Israel rejects.
Palestinians view settlement expansion as one of the main obstacles to a future independent state, arguing it further fragments territory they seek for a sovereign Palestinian state.
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As the Ukraine war is highlighted by some leaders during the United Nations' 81st General Assembly meeting in New York, Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Thursday with ballistic missiles, killing two people and injuring six, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
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Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan will hold an urgent high-level meeting under a joint defence pact to discuss ways to support the kingdom amid attacks by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis. The meeting comes as Tehran seeks to distance itself from the rapid advance of its Houthi allies.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan held talks on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly in New York. They discussed progress towards peace and the development of economic and transport links between the two countries.
Fourteen Kazakh military personnel died after being swept out to sea during a naval training exercise in the western Mangistau region, authorities said on Thursday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mounted a forceful defence of Israel's actions in the region at the United Nations on Thursday, seeking to counter growing international isolation ahead of elections he could lose, as dozens of delegates streamed out.
Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have escalated again, with Pakistani security sources saying its troops thwarted an attempted Afghan Taliban attack in the Gulistan sector of Balochistan on Thursday, along Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan, killing several Taliban fighters.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze used his address to the UN General Assembly's 81st session in New York this week to make a two-part case: that Georgia is becoming an indispensable regional hub, and that it remains open to repairing ties with international partners.
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