Thank you so much for the question, and thank you so much for bearing witness to what is happening in the occupied West Bank right now.
The extremist ministers in Netanyahu's government are absolutely using the cover of the Gaza war to advance annexation. We've seen a number of outposts—I think there are about 43 illegal outposts, according to the Israeli government—that have gone up since October 7. If you want a contrast, in past years, between 1996 and 2023, the number of illegal outposts per year on average was about seven. You can see that this is really being accelerated.
We also see that it isn't just an issue of de facto annexation, which has been talked about a lot. Now we're moving into what is being called by many experts a de jure annexation. Finance Minister Smotrich has moved the administration of the West Bank from a military administration to a civil administration. He even admitted this himself: “It will be easier to swallow in the international and legal context”. That is so they won't have to say that what they are doing is annexation.
I would also say that since October 7, OCHA has documented nearly 1,600 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians. We have also seen Israeli authorities destroying, confiscating, stealing or forcing the demolition of about 1,800 Palestinian structures across the West Bank.
I would also like to note that in a—