AMMAN — The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the Israeli government’s approval of the establishment and legalisation of 19 settlements in the occupied West Bank, calling the move a violation of international law and an obstacle to the two-state solution.

 

In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said the decision violates international humanitarian law, the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and it hinders efforts to end of the occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state along the June 4, 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

 

The ministry stressed that Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied West Bank.

 

The ministry’s spokesperson Fuad Majali voiced Jordan’s rejection of the continuation of settlement expansion by Israel’s current government, warning that such actions entrench the occupation and undermine international efforts toward a two-state solution.

 

Majali said that the settlement activity violates international law and UN resolutions, particularly UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemns measures aimed at changing the demographic composition and status of Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.

 

He also cited the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice affirming the illegality of the occupation and settlement construction.

 

The spokesperson called on the international community to assume its legal and moral responsibilities by pressing Israel to halt the “illegal and unilateral actions in the occupied West Bank and to support the realisation of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including the establishment of an independent state, as the only way to achieve lasting peace and stability in the region.”

 

The expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is at its highest level since at least 2017, when the United Nations began tracking such data, according to a report by the United Nations secretary-general seen by AFP on Friday.

 

In 2025, "plans for nearly 47,390 housing units were advanced, approved, or tendered, compared with some 26,170 in 2024," the report said.

 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned what he called the "relentless" expansion in a statement accompanying the report, saying it "continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous and sovereign Palestinian State."

 

Israel’s security cabinet has signed off on plans to formalise 19 illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank, in a move Palestinian officials say deepens a decades-long project of land theft and demographic engineering.

 

Israeli media reported on Friday that the decision also revives two northern West Bank outposts dismantled during the 2005 “disengagement”.