Israeli government secretly approves over 30 new settler outposts | CNN

The Israeli security cabinet secretly approved the legalization of over 30 new settler outposts and farms in the occupied West Bank last month, according to three Israeli sources familiar with the decision. Unlike similar decisions in the past, the approval was not publicly announced by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who did not respond to CNN request for comment. Two of the sources told CNN the approval was kept quiet to avoid international criticism against the backdrop of surging settler violence toward Palestinians in the West Bank since the outset of the Iran war. The authorization is part of an ongoing push by the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to expand the settlements and entrench Israel’s grip on the land, with the goal of burying the possibility of a future Palestinian state. The Palestinians want a state in territories Israel captured in the 1967 war, including the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The push to legalize the outposts has been carried out in defiance of international law, which considers all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank illegal. Outposts are considered illeg