Today, Wednesday, the Knesset General Assembly approved, in preliminary reading, a draft law on annexing lands in the occupied West Bank to Israel. The draft law stipulates that the southern Hebron region is considered part of the Negev.

In addition to the Palestinian towns and villages that were not included in the draft law, this area includes 15 settlements, including “Kiryat Arba” in Hebron, and a large number of random settlement outposts. 52 Knesset members, some of them from the Yisrael Beytenu party, supported the bill, and 37 Knesset members opposed it.

The text of the law, presented by Knesset member Limor Son Har Melech from the “Otzma Yehudit” party headed by Itamar Ben Gvir, stated that “it is proposed to include all Israelis (i.e. settlements and random settlement outposts) south of Line 115 within the definition of the Negev,” and that “the Negev shall be defined.” It includes the Negev region from south of Line 115 to the area to which the Negev Development Authority Law of 1991 applies.

Har Melech considered, "This is an important law that will stop the years-long discrimination and injustice against settlers in South Mount Hebron and Kiryat Arba."

Minister of the Negev, Galilee and National Immunity, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, also from the fascist Otzma Yehudit party, who commented on the law on behalf of the government, said, “This law is a correction of an injustice.

It entered the south of Mount Hebron into the threatened towns, including mixed cities (i.e. the historic Palestinian cities - Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Lod, and Ramla) in the country.”

The head of the opposition, Yair Lapid, attacked the draft law and said, “Kiryat Arba is not the Negev. You have been stealing the peripheral areas for years and today you have turned that into law. The Negev is the Negev, and Judea and Samaria (i.e. the occupied West Bank) is Judea and Samaria, and Galilee is Galilee. No.” You invent a geography that does not exist, and you steal money from the Negev towns of Netivot, Ofakim, and Kiryat Shmona for 50 years, and the settlements steal the money of the towns outside central Israel, and the Likud party is silent.

Today, the Minister of Defense, Yoav Galant, issued a joint statement with the head of the settlement council in the northern West Bank, Yossi Dagan, and announced the start of implementation of what was stipulated in the “cancellation of disengagement” law from the northern West Bank, which was voted on and passed in the second and third readings in the Knesset. , on March 21, 2023.

Galant directed that the text of the law be applied to the settlements of “Ganim”, “Kadim”, “Homesh” and “Sanur”, which were dismantled in 2005, as part of efforts aimed at legitimizing random settlement outposts in the northern occupied West Bank.

The “Disengagement Cancellation” law cancels the provisions related to preventing the entry and presence of settlers in areas in the northern West Bank, from which four settlements were evacuated in 2005. This means that these areas will become part of Area C and the prevention of settlers from entering and being present in them will be canceled.

According to the statement issued by Gallant, the decision was taken after continuous consultations between him and the head of the settlement council and officials in the Israeli army.

Galant said: “After the disengagement repeal law was passed in the Knesset and the work was completed, we were able to complete the historic step. Jewish control over Judea and Samaria guarantees security, and implementing the disengagement repeal law will lead to developing settlement and providing security for the residents of the region. I will continue to develop the settlements in Judea and Samaria.” "To strengthen security elements and the security of citizens, on roads and settlements."