Israel's Knesset has passed a controversial new law that retroactively legalises thousands of homes built on Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The regulation bill "applies to around 4,000 homes for which settlers could prove ignorance that they had built on privately owned land and had received encouragement from the Israeli state to do so", Al Jazeera reports.
"The original Palestinian landowners are to be compensated with money or alternative land," the BBC says.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) immediately released a statement describing the bill as a means to "legalise theft" and a step towards partial annexation of the West Bank.
"The Israeli settlement enterprise negates peace and the possibility of the two-state solution," it said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported the bill, which is seen as yet another in a series of pro-settlement moves that have taken place since US President Donald Trump took power.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog compared the legislation to a "freight train" whose "cars will carry international indictments against Israeli and Jewish soldiers and officers".
Herzog also warned that the law would lead to Israel being tried at the international criminal court, reports The Guardian.
-
Moon dust has earthly elements thanks to a magnetic bridgeUnder the radar The substances could help supply a lunar base
-
World’s oldest rock art discovered in IndonesiaUnder the Radar Ancient handprint on Sulawesi cave wall suggests complexity of thought, challenging long-held belief that human intelligence erupted in Europe
-
Claude Code: the viral AI coding app making a splash in techThe Explainer Engineers and noncoders alike are helping the app go viral
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
Why recognizing Somaliland is so risky for IsraelTHE EXPLAINER By wading into one of North Africa’s most fraught political schisms, the Netanyahu government risks further international isolation
-
Israel approves new West Bank settlementsSpeed Read The ‘Israeli onslaught has all but vanquished a free Palestinian existence in the West Bank’
-
How Bulgaria’s government fell amid mass protestsThe Explainer The country’s prime minister resigned as part of the fallout
