settlements

In September 2005, Israeli forces pulled out of the Gaza Strip, with the last troops leaving through the al-Karara (Kisufim) and Beit Hanoon (Erez) crossings.

The withdrawal was seen at the time as a historic turning point, raising hopes that nearly four decades of military occupation had come to an end.

But instead of relinquishing control, Israel repositioned itself on Gaza’s edges. It sealed off the territory by land, sea, and air, restricting movement through fence crossings, imposing limits on fishing waters, and keeping watch from above.

In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera breaks down factors that led to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan, maps the 21 illegal settlements Israel dismantled across Gaza, and explores how their removal paved the way for deeper settlement expansion across the occupied West Bank.

What led up to disengagement?

The idea of the Gaza disengagement was primarily conceived and championed by Sharon.

A strong supporter of Israeli settlements, Sharon began considering a withdrawal from Gaza in the early 2000s, particularly after the outbreak of the second Intifada (2000-05).

The idea was motivated by the high cost of defending isolated settlements, the demographic challenges of ruling over a large Palestinian population, and the strategic goal of consolidating Israel’s hold on larger illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Despite facing intense opposition from within his Likud party and across the political spectrum, Sharon pushed forward the plan, framing it as a strategic move rather than a concession.

The proposal, formally known in Hebrew as the “Hitnatkut” (Disengagement), was announced in December 2003 and eventually approved by the Knesset in October 2004, paving the way for the dismantling of 21 settlements in Gaza and four in the northern West Bank in 2005.

Timeline of Gaza disengagement

• June 6, 2004 – The Israeli cabinet votes 14-7 in favour of PM Sharon’s disengagement plan, setting the stage for withdrawal from Gaza.
• February 16, 2005 – The Knesset passes the Disengagement Implementation Law, providing the legal framework for evacuations and compensation.
• August 15, 2005 – Israeli forces begin dismantling settlements and removing settlers from Gaza.
• August 22, 2005 – All 21 settlements in Gaza are emptied, removing about 8,000 settlers.
• August 23-24, 2005 – Attention shifts to the northern West Bank, where four settlements (al-Ghanim, Homesh, Kadim, Sanur) are dismantled.
• September 12, 2005 – Military jeeps and armoured bulldozers leave through the al-Karara and Beit Hanoon crossing points, ending 38 years of continuous Israeli military presence in the Strip.

Where were the 21 illegal settlements in Gaza?

Following the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula, it intensified settlement building.

Israeli settlements are Jewish-only communities built on Palestinian land. Settlements are illegal under international law because they involve transferring an occupying power’s civilian population into occupied territory, which violates the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The first settlement in Gaza after 1967 was Kfar Darom, set up as a combined military-agricultural outpost in 1970 and later converted into a civilian community. It became part of Gush Katif, the largest Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip, located in southern Gaza, where most settlements were concentrated, particularly in the Khan Younis and Rafah governorates.

Other settlements included Netzarim, just south of Gaza City, and several sites in northern Gaza. These settlements were heavily protected by the Israeli military and surrounded by buffer zones that restricted Palestinian movement.

Over the next three decades, a total of 21 settlements were built, housing some 8,000 settlers.

Although settlers made up just 0.6 percent of Gaza’s population, they controlled roughly 20 percent of its land, affecting about 1.3 million Palestinians living in the territory at the time.

During Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza, it built several corridors named after the settlements they connected, including Netzarim and Morag, two of the territory’s largest and most prominent settlements.

Settlement expansion across the West Bank

Since Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza, settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has accelerated. Today, there are between 600,000 and 750,000 Israeli settlers living in at least 250 settlements and outposts.

Many of these settlements have expanded while new outposts were set up, often strategically located to control roads, high ground, and key resources, effectively blocking Palestinians from accessing their land and limiting their freedom of movement.

One of Israel’s latest settlement announcements came in August 2025, when Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich approved the construction of about 3,400 housing units in E1, between East Jerusalem and the illegal settlement of Maale Adumim.

E1 is strategically significant, as it forms one of the last geographic links between Bethlehem and Ramallah, and expansion there could undermine plans for a territorially contiguous Palestinian state.

Israeli authorities are moving forward with plans to dramatically expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite growing international condemnation and warnings that the move would destroy already moribund prospects for a two-state solution.

The Israeli government has set Wednesday as the date to discuss building thousands of new housing units in the E1 area, east of occupied East Jerusalem. The proposed expansion would link the large and illegal Ma’ale Adumim settlement with Jerusalem, effectively bisecting the West Bank and isolating Palestinian communities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government also appears on the cusp of announcing its intention to occupy all of Gaza as its genocidal war on the besieged enclave rages on.

The E1 plan in the West Bank has long been criticised by the international community, including the European Union and successive United States administrations. In 2022, Israel postponed the plan following US pressure, but in recent months, the government approved road-widening projects in the area and began restricting Palestinian access – a move rights groups say indicates a renewed push to entrench control.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. The International Court of Justice, the top United Nations tribunal, reaffirmed that position last year, saying that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible”.

On Monday, Germany reiterated its strong opposition to the E1 project.

“We, as the federal government, strongly reject the E1 settlement project,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kathrin Deschauer said. “What we are concerned about is that a two-state solution is possible in the long term.”

The plan would see nearly 1,214 hectares (3,000 acres) of Palestinian land stolen to build more than 4,000 settlement units, as well as hotels and roads connecting Ma’ale Adumim to West Jerusalem.

Palestinians say the project is part of broader efforts to “Judaise” East Jerusalem and entrench Israeli control over occupied territories in violation of international law.

Palestinian leaders seek the entirety of the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip, and as a capital, East Jerusalem – areas Israel captured in the 1967 war – for their future state.

Currently, more than 500,000 settlers are living in the West Bank, and some 220,000 others in East Jerusalem.

Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim said the plan has been in the works since “the early 90s”.

“The plan has been described by US officials … as devastating and a disastrous plan,” Ibrahim said, as it threatens “the unity” of a potential Palestinian state.

According to Ibrahim, the Israeli objective is to ensure there is “no Palestinian state on the ground” by the time Western and European countries recognise Palestine as a state.

Israel would be “cutting the West Bank into so many different sections, fragmenting them, creating what Palestinians have been calling as cantons,” she said, predicting that his would push Palestinians into “very small, caged communities”.

Widening crackdown in the West Bank

The move comes amid a broader Israeli crackdown in the occupied West Bank. At least 30 Palestinians were arrested overnight across multiple cities including Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Tulkarem, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Among those detained were two women, a female journalist, and several former prisoners. The commission said more than 18,500 Palestinians have been arrested in the West Bank since Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza in October 2023.

In Bethlehem, residents of Beit Iskaria village received forced displacement notices this week as Israeli forces moved to seize more land for settlement expansion in the Gush Etzion bloc. According to village council head Muhammad Atallah, soldiers ordered him and his family to vacate grapevine-covered farmland within 10 days.

Separately, Israeli forces carried out demolitions in the agricultural suburb near Jalazone refugee camp north of Ramallah, with reports that soldiers were accompanied by settlers. In Dar Salah, east of Bethlehem, a building under construction was demolished by Israeli military vehicles.

According to rights groups, July alone saw 75 demolitions in the West Bank targeting 122 structures, including 60 homes and dozens of agricultural and livelihood facilities.

Along with arrests and demolitions, Palestinians have also seen a rise in settler attacks in recent months. Armed settlers, often backed by Israeli soldiers, have rampaged through Palestinian villages, torched crops, vandalised homes, and assaulted residents with impunity, resulting in several Palestinian deaths.

Rights groups and United Nations officials have warned that settler violence has reached record levels, part of what they describe as a coordinated campaign to forcibly displace Palestinians from key areas of the West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities issued a six-month ban on Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territory, from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque.

According to the Wafa news agency, the Jerusalem governorate, quoting lawyer Khaldoun Najm, said the ban on Hussein follows the expiration of his eight-day ban.

This most recent ban was imposed after his Friday sermon, where he condemned Israel’s starvation policy against Palestinians in Gaza.

Last week, Hussein was handed an initial eight-day expulsion order from the mosque.

President Trump’s future presidential library has a growing list of corporate sponsors, and Democratic lawmakers are sounding alarms.

To settle Trump’s lawsuit over edits to a CBS “60 Minutes” broadcast, Paramount Global agreed to pay $16 million to help finance the future library and cover the president’s legal fees.

Walt Disney Co. earlier pledged $15 million to Trump’s library to resolve a defamation lawsuit over inaccurate statements about Trump by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. And this spring, the nation of Qatar donated a $400-million Boeing 747-8 luxury jetliner for Trump’s use — a gift that ultimately will be registered to his library, whatever form it takes.

On Wednesday, a group of progressive lawmakers, led by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), introduced the Presidential Library Anti-Corruption Act, a proposed measure that would require transparency and impose restrictions on donations to presidential libraries.

“This new bill will close the loopholes that allow presidential libraries to be used as a tool for corruption and bribery,” Warren told reporters on a Zoom call. “Slamming the door shut on apparent corruption at the highest levels of government is an important step forward and something everyone should get behind.”

For now, the lawmakers — including Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) and Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) — lack support from Republicans in Congress.

Still, the measure is needed, the lawmakers said, because there are no rules that specifically target solicitation of gifts or payments by individuals and companies to try to curry favor with the president.

The bill would create a cap on contributions, prohibit donations from lobbyists and foreign governments and delay fundraising until a president leaves office, with a carve-out for nonprofits.

Violators would risk criminal or civil penalties, which could equal as much as the value of the gift.

The measure also would prohibit the conversion of a donation to personal use, as some have feared will happen with the acceptance of the Qatar plane.

“What is Qatar getting in exchange? … Nobody knows,” Warren said. “All of this shady stuff is happening because there are essentially no rules for presidential library donations.”

Under the legislation, quarterly disclosures would be required.

“People have a right to know who is, in effect, gaining favor with a president in office through donations to a library,” Blumenthal said. “These kinds of requirements ought to apply to both Republican[s] and Democrat[s], because the donation can be problematic no matter which party the president may belong to.”

Critics blasted former President Clinton for pardoning late fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich after his wife donated $450,000 to Clinton’s library.

In addition to the CBS “60 Minutes” and ABC settlements, Facebook parent company Meta donated $22 million to Trump’s library. The payment was part of Meta’s $25-million settlement to a lawsuit brought after Facebook banned Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The Elon Musk-owned social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, donated $10 million.

Contributions to Trump’s inaugural celebrations this year that went beyond money spent are expected to be steered to the library as well as money raised from people who want to dine with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Warren’s office said.

Warren and others previously raised the notion that Paramount’s settlement with Trump, in particular, could constitute a bribe. It has been widely believed that resolving the legal dispute with Trump was a prerequisite for getting the company’s pending $8-billion merger with David Ellison’s Skydance Media cleared by the Federal Communications Commission.

Move follows campaign accusing Maersk of links to Israel’s military and occupation of Palestinian lands.

Maersk will cut ties with companies linked to illegal Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank, the Danish shipping giant has said.

The decision follows months-long pressure by activists on Maersk on issues related to Palestine.

Its shipments have come under scrutiny as part of an international campaign led by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a grassroots organisation. The group has focused mainly on Maersk’s shipments of US foreign military sales, but PYM has also researched the transport of cargo from companies tied to settlements.

A statement on the Maersk website, dated June, 2025, said, “Following a recent review of transports related to the West Bank, we further strengthened our screening procedures in relation to Israeli settlements, including aligning our screening process with the OHCHR database of enterprises involved in activities in the settlements.”

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) database includes businesses involved in various activities related to the settlements, such as providing services, equipment, or financial operations that support the illegal settlements.

When asked for further details on its decision, Maersk pointed Al Jazeera to the statement on its website. It is unclear which or how many businesses Maersk had links to.

Israel has built more than 100 settlements across the occupied West Bank that are home to some 500,000 settlers. These settlements, illegal under international law, range from small outposts to larger communities with modern infrastructure.

“This sends a clear message to the global shipping industry: compliance with international law and basic human rights is not optional. Doing business with Israel’s illegal settlements is no longer viable, and the world is watching to see who follows next,” said PYM’s Aisha Nizar.

But she called for further action, arguing that Maersk still transports goods for the Israeli military, including components of its F-35 fighter planes.

“Maersk continues to profit from the genocide of our people – regularly shipping F-35 components used to bomb and massacre Palestinians,” Nizar said. “We will continue to build pressure and mobilise people power until Maersk cuts all ties to genocide and ends the transport of weapons and weapons components to Israel.”

Last year, Spain banned Maersk ships transporting military goods to Israel from using its ports.

Earlier this month, PYM revealed how Maersk was using the port of Rotterdam as an essential link in what it called a “supply chain of death”.

Despite a Dutch court ruling that prohibited the Netherlands from exporting F-35 parts to Israel, Rotterdam still played a role in Israel’s F-35 programme, the report showed.

In response to those findings, Maersk told Al Jazeera that it upholds a strict policy of not shipping weapons or ammunition to active conflict zones and that it conducts due diligence, particularly in regions affected by active conflicts, including Israel and Gaza, and adapts this due diligence to the changing context.

It confirmed, however, that its US subsidiary, Maersk Line Limited, was one of “many companies supporting the global F-35 supply chain” with transport services.

Israel’s international allies are growing louder in their condemnation of its war on Gaza and its continued construction of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

United Nations experts, human rights groups and legal scholars have all previously told Al Jazeera that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza and committing abuses that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank.

And yet less than two weeks after receiving a stern warning from its Western allies, Israel approved 22 illegal settlements in the West Bank, amounting to what has been described as the largest land grab since Israeli and Palestinian leaders inked the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993.

“Israel is all about showing [the world] who calls the shots. They are saying … you can condemn us all you want, but in the end, you will bow down to us and not the other way around,” said Diana Buttu, a legal scholar and political analyst focused on Israel and Palestine.

The Oslo Accords were ostensibly aimed at creating a Palestinian state, including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.

However, in practice, Israel has continued to expand illegal settlements and render the two-state solution impossible, analysts told Al Jazeera.

Troubling pattern

Israel has often announced the building of new illegal settlements in response to signals of support for Palestinian statehood from the UN or its allies.

In 2012, Israel went so far as to approve 3,000 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank after the Palestinian Authority (PA) – the entity created out of the Oslo Accords to govern swaths of the West Bank – was granted non-member observer status in the UN General Assembly.

Last year, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, warned that a new illegal settlement would be built for every country that recognises a Palestinian state.

The announcement came after Spain, Norway, and Ireland took the symbolic step in May 2024.

“I certainly think there is a pattern where Israel responds to pressure regarding its occupation – or anything else – by announcing settler expansion,” said Omar Rahman, an expert focused on Israel and Palestine for the Middle East Council for Global Affairs.

“We see that pattern repeated over and over again,” he told Al Jazeera.

As global pressure mounts against Israel’s war on Gaza, Israel has continued to test the patience of its allies.

On May 21, Israeli troops fired warning shots at a group of European, Asian and Arab diplomats who were on an official mission to assess the humanitarian crisis in Jenin refugee camp, which has been subjected to a months-long attack and siege by the Israeli army since the start of the year.

“I don’t know where the red line is. It is clear that there is no red line,” said Buttu.

Justifying inaction

After Zionist militias ethnically cleansed some 750,000 Palestinians to make way for the state of Israel in 1948 – an event referred to as the “Nakba” or catastrophe – Israel has increasingly annexed and occupied the little that remains of Palestinian land.

Annexation of the occupied West Bank has accelerated in recent years thanks to far-right settlers who occupy positions in the Israeli government, said Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.

He believes Israel was always planning to approve the 22 illegal settlements irrespective of the joint statement issued by France, the UK and Canada, as it fit in with the state’s ultimate goal of expanding Jewish settlement of the occupied West Bank.

“Nobody can really think that if those countries didn’t issue an announcement that [further] annexation wasn’t going to happen. Of course, it was going to happen,” he told Al Jazeera.

Rahman, from the Middle East Council, believes Israel’s tactic of announcing pre-planned settlement expansion in the face of Western pressure simply aims to dissuade its allies from taking concrete action.

He suspects Canada, the UK and France will likely not slap on targeted sanctions against Israeli officials, as they have threatened to do, instead using the argument that any moves against Israel will lead to a backlash against Palestinians.

“[Canada, UK and France] may say they are acting for the preservation of the two-state solution by not doing anything to save the two-state solution,” Rahman told Al Jazeera.

Analysts believe that sanctions on Israel would be the only way to rescue the two-state solution and end Israel’s war on Gaza, but accept that comprehensive sanctions against the Israeli state would still be unlikely at this stage.

Instead, Western countries like Canada, France and the UK may target sanctions at the far-right ministers most associated with pro-settler policies, Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“These men … are trying to jam in everything they can do now because they know there is no guarantee they will maintain their positions of power indefinitely,” Elgindy told Al Jazeera.

Buttu fears that European countries will merely resort to more symbolic measures such as “recognising Palestine”, which will have little impact on the ground.

“By the time everyone gets around to recognising Palestine, there won’t be any land [for Palestinians] left,” she told Al Jazeera.

Israel says it plans to build 22 new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank – the largest number approved to be built at one time.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says the settlements are intended to block the creation of a Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues its expanded offensive, destroying homes, roads and facilities, such as waterways and hospitals, essentially making areas of the occupied West Bank uninhabitable.

And settler violence against civilians, including destroying crops and uprooting trees, is at an all-time high, according to the UN.

Europe has hit back against the move to build more illegal settlements by threatening sanctions. But can they have a real impact?

What does this mean for millions of Palestinians? And is a Palestinian state now becoming nearly impossible?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Xavier Abu Eid – Political analyst and a former adviser to the PLO’s negotiation team

Ori Goldberg- an Israeli author, academic, and political commentator

Salman Shaikh – CEO of The Shaikh Group, an organisation working on diplomacy and mediation in the Middle East

Israel’s government has approved a major expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The defence minister said the aim is to prevent a Palestinian state. Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim has more details of the plan.

May 29 (UPI) — Israel unveiled plans Thursday for the most significant expansion of its presence in the occupied West Bank in years after approving 22 new Jewish settlements.

The scheme gives legal recognition to the 22 settlements, which already exist but are unofficial, said Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Katz said the step would “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel,” but the Palestinian Authority and at least one anti-war group in Israel condemned the move.

Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh called the Israeli government’s approval of the new settlements in the occupied West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, a “dangerous escalation” that was an affront to international legitimacy and international law, including at least one U.N. Security Council Resolution.

He also called on Washington to intervene to halt “Israeli tampering” with what he said had implications for the entire region.

The Peace Now protest movement said the move would “dramatically reshape the West Bank and entrench the occupation even further.”

Israel’s some 160 settlements on disputed land it has occupied for almost six decades since the 1967 Six-Day War with its Arab neighbors are illegal under international law. But Israel argues it has a legal claim on the grounds that the West Bank is fundamental to its security and for religious and historic reasons dating back to the Balfour Declaration and beyond.

Calling the settlement approvals “a historic decision,” Smotrich dismissed criticism of the move, saying Israel was not seizing foreign lands but reclaiming “the inheritance of our fathers.”

“This is a great day for settlement and an important day for the State of Israel. Through hard work and tenacious leadership, we have succeeded in creating a profound strategic change, returning the State of Israel to a path of construction, Zionism, and vision,” he wrote in a post on X.

“Settlement in the land of our ancestors is the protective wall of the State of Israel — today we have taken a huge step to strengthen it. The next step – sovereignty!” said Smotrich.

Katz and Smotrich’s statements came hours after the governments of Ireland, Norway, Slovenia and Spain issued a joint communique reaffirming their commitment to the implementation of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

Only a “viable, contiguous Palestinian State, with internationally recognized borders, comprised of Gaza and the West Bank and with East Jerusalem as its capital, can fully satisfy the legitimate national aspirations and the needs of peace and security” of both peoples, read the dispatch issued after the representatives of the four nations met Wednesday.

Israel announces 22 new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, fuelling fears of further annexation and erasure.

The Israeli government says it will establish 22 illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, including the legalisation of some so-called “outposts” already built without government authorisation, in a move decried by Palestinian officials and rights groups.

Defence Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the decision on Thursday, with Katz saying that it “strengthens our hold on Judea and Samaria,” using an Israeli term for the occupied West Bank.

He added it was also “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”.

Smotrich, himself a settler on illegally occupied Palestinian-owned land and an advocate for Israeli annexation of the West Bank, hailed the “historic decision”.

In a statement, the Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the move as a “once-in-a-generation decision”, emphasising its strategic value in fortifying Israel’s hold along the eastern border with Jordan.

Israel has already built more than 100 illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank that are home to some 500,000 settlers. The settlements range from small outposts to larger communities with modern infrastructure.

The West Bank is home to more than three million Palestinians, who live under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority governing in limited areas.

The Palestinians see the territory as an integral part of a future state, along with occupied East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Palestinians slam ‘dangerous escalation’

Palestinian officials and rights groups slammed the Israeli government’s decision, warning that the expansion of illegal settlements would further harm the prospects for a future Palestinian state.

Palestinian presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh condemned the decision, calling it a “dangerous escalation” and a “challenge to international legitimacy”.

He accused Israel of fuelling instability in the region and warned the move breaches international law. “This decision violates all international resolutions, especially UN Security Council Resolution 2334,” he said, adding that all settlement activity remains illegal and illegitimate.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri condemned called on the United States and the European Union to take action.

“The announcement of the building of 22 new settlements in the West Bank is part of the war led by Netanyahu against the Palestinian people,” Abu Zuhri told the news agency Reuters.

The Israeli NGO Peace Now said the move “will dramatically reshape the West Bank and further entrench the occupation”.

“The Israeli government no longer pretends otherwise: the annexation of the occupied territories and expansion of settlements is its central goal,” it said in a statement.

“This is the largest batch of illegal Israeli settlements to be approved in one decision,” reported Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim from the occupied West Bank.

“Israeli settlements are strangling Palestinian communities inside the West Bank,” said Ibrahim. “These new settlements fill the gaps, making a future Palestinian state almost impossible on the ground. Israel is using this moment – while global attention is fixed on Gaza – to cement its occupation.”

The settlement announcement comes just weeks ahead of a high-level international conference, jointly led by France and Saudi Arabia at the United Nations, aiming to revive the long-dormant process to agree a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The administration of President Donald Trump has begun the process of ending the federal government’s involvement in reforming local police departments, a civil rights effort that gained steam after the deaths of unarmed Black people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

On Wednesday, the United States Department of Justice announced it would cancel two proposed settlements that would have seen the cities of Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, agree to federal oversight of their police departments.

Generally, those settlements — called consent decrees — involve a series of steps and goals that the two parties negotiate and that a federal court helps enforce.

In addition, the Justice Department said it would withdraw reports on six other local police departments which found patterns of discrimination and excessive violence.

The Trump administration framed the announcement as part of its efforts to transfer greater responsibility towards individual cities and states — and away from the federal government.

“It’s our view at the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division under the Trump administration that federal micromanagement of local police should be a rare exception, and not the norm,” said Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, said.

She argued that such federal oversight was a waste of taxpayer funds.

“There is a lack of accountability. There is a lack of local control. And there is an industry here that is, I think, ripping off the taxpayers and making citizens less safe,” Dhillon said.

But civil rights leaders and police reform advocates reacted with outrage over the news, which arrived just days before the fifth anniversary of Floyd’s murder.

Reverend Al Sharpton was among the leaders who called for police departments to take meaningful action after a viral video captured Floyd’s final moments. On May 25, 2020, a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, leaned his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, causing him to asphyxiate and die.

“This move isn’t just a policy reversal,” Sharpton said. “It’s a moral retreat that sends a chilling message that accountability is optional when it comes to Black and Brown victims.”

He warned that the Trump administration’s move sent a signal to police departments that they were “above scrutiny”.

The year of Floyd’s murder was also marked by a number of other high-profile deaths, including Taylor’s.

The 26-year-old medical worker was in bed late at night on March 13, 2020, when police used a battering ram to break into her apartment. Her boyfriend feared they were being attacked and fired his gun once. The police responded with a volley of bullets, killing Taylor, who was struck six times.

Her death and others stirred a period of nationwide unrest in the US, with millions of people protesting in the streets as part of social justice movements like Black Lives Matter. It is thought that the 2020 “racial reckoning” was one of the biggest mass demonstrations in US history.

Those protests unfolded in the waning months of Trump’s first term, and when Democrat Joe Biden succeeded him as president in 2021, the Justice Department embarked on a series of 12 investigations looking into allegations of police overreach and excessive violence on the local level.

Those investigations were called “pattern-or-practice” probes, designed to look into whether incidents of police brutality were one-offs or part of a larger trend in a given police department.

Floyd’s murder took place in Minneapolis and Taylor’s in Louisville — the two cities where the Trump Justice Department decided to drop its settlements on Wednesday. In both cities, under Biden, the Justice Department had found patterns of discriminatory policing.

“Police officers must often make split-second decisions and risk their lives to keep their communities safe,” the report on Minneapolis reads.

But, it adds, the local police department “used dangerous techniques and weapons against people who committed at most a petty offence and sometimes no offense at all”.

Other police departments scrutinised during this period included ones in Phoenix, Arizona; Memphis, Tennessee; Trenton, New Jersey; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and the Louisiana State Police.

Dhillon, who now runs the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, positioned the retractions of those Biden-era findings as a policy pivot. She also condemned the consent decrees as an overused tool and indicated she would look into rescinding some agreements that were already in place.

That process would likely involve a judge’s approval, however.

And while some community advocates have expressed concerns that consent decrees could place a burden on already over-stretched law enforcement departments, others disagree with the Justice Department’s latest move, arguing that a retreat could strip resources and momentum from police reform.

At the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD), Chief Paul Humphrey said the commitment to better policing went beyond any settlement. He indicated he would look for an independent monitor to oversee reforms.

“It’s not about these words on this paper,” he said. “It’s about the work that the men and women of LMPD, the men and women of metro government and the community will do together in order to make us a safer, better place.”

And in Minneapolis, Mayor Jacob Frey doubled down, saying he could keep pushing forward with the police reform plan his city had agreed to.

“We will comply with every sentence of every paragraph of the 169-page consent decree that we signed this year,” he said at a news conference.

“We will make sure that we are moving forward with every sentence of every paragraph of both the settlement around the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, as well as the consent decree.”