Israeli ministers said the settler outpost at Homesh will be retrospectively legalised (file photo from May 2023)
Israeli ministers say 22 new Jewish settlements have been approved in the occupied West Bank – the biggest expansion in decades.
Several already exist as outposts, built without government authorisation, but will now be made legal under Israeli law. Others are completely new, according to Defence Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Settlements – which are widely seen as illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this – are one of the most contentious issues between Israel and the Palestinians.
Katz said the move “prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”, while the Palestinian presidency called it a “dangerous escalation”.
The Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now called it “the most extensive move of its kind” in more than 30 years and warned that it would “dramatically reshape the West Bank and entrench the occupation even further”.
BBC team’s tense encounter with sanctioned Israeli settler while filming in West Bank
Israeli settlers are seizing Palestinian land under cover of war – they hope permanently
Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem – land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for their hoped-for future state – in the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.
Successive Israeli governments have allowed settlements to grow. However, expansion has risen sharply since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the head of a right-wing, pro-settler coalition, as well as the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.
On Thursday, Israel Katz and Bezalel Smotrich – an ultranationalist leader and settler who has control over planning in the West Bank – officially confirmed a decision that is believed to have been taken by the government two weeks ago.
A statement said they had approved 22 new settlements, the “renewal of settlement in northern Samaria [northern West Bank], and reinforcement of the eastern axis of the State of Israel”.
It did not include information about the exact location of the new settlements, but maps being circulated suggest they will be across the length and width of the West Bank.
Katz and Smotrich did highlight what they described as the “historic return” to Homesh and Sa-Nur, two settlements deep in the northern West Bank which were evacuated at the same time as Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005.
Nine of the settlements would be completely new, according to the watchdog. They include Mount Ebal, just to the south of Homesh and near the city of Nablus, and Beit Horon North, west of Ramallah, where it said construction had already begun in recent days.
The last of the settlements, Nofei Prat, was currently officially considered a “neighbourhood” of another settlement near East Jerusalem, Kfar Adumim, and would now be recognised as independent, Peace Now added.
Katz said the decision was a “strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel, and serves as a buffer against our enemies.”
“This is a Zionist, security, and national response – and a clear decision on the future of the country,” he added.
Smotrich called it a “once-in-a-generation decision” and declared: “Next step sovereignty!”
But a spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – who governs parts of the West Bank not under full Israeli control – called it a “dangerous escalation” and accused Israel of continuing to drag the region into a “cycle of violence and instability”.
“This extremist Israeli government is trying by all means to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh told Reuters news agency.
Lior Amihai, director of Peace Now, said: “The Israeli government no longer pretends otherwise: the annexation of the occupied territories and expansion of settlements is its central goal.”
Elisha Ben Kimon, an Israeli journalist with the popular Ynet news site who covers the West Bank and settlements, told the BBC’s Newshour programme that 70% to 80% of ministers wanted to declare the formal annexation of the West Bank.
“I think that Israel is a few steps from declaring this area as Israeli territory. They believe that this period will never be coming back, this is one opportunity that they don’t want to slip from their hands – that’s why they’re doing this now,” Mr Ben Kimon told the BBC’s Newshour programme.
Israel effectively annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, in a move not recognised by the vast majority of the international community.
AFP
Israeli soldiers accompanied settlers establishing the Homesh outpost in May 2023
This latest step is a blow to renewed efforts to revive momentum on a two-state solution to the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict – the internationally approved formula for peace that would see the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel – with a French-Saudi summit planned at the UN’s headquarters in New York next month.
Jordan’s foreign ministry condemned what it called a “flagrant violation of international law” that “undermines prospects for peace by entrenching the occupation”.
UK Foreign Office Minister Hamish Falconer said the move was “a deliberate obstacle to Palestinian statehood”.
Since taking office, the current Israeli government has decided to establish a total of 49 new settlements and begun the legalisation process for seven unauthorised outposts which will be recognised as “neighbourhoods” of existing settlements, according to Peace Now.
Last year, the UN’s top court issued an advisory opinion that said “Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful”. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) also said Israeli settlements “have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law”, and that Israel should “evacuate all settlers”.
Netanyahu said at the time that the court had made a “decision of lies” and insisted that “the Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land”.
Multiple sources shared details with the Daily Beast about a meeting in which the ABC News president delivered a message that left the co-hosts unnerved.
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/ABC
Disney and ABC News have asked the hosts of The View to tone down their political rhetoric, multiple sources told the Daily Beast.
Since President Donald Trump’s election in 2024, the panel of co-hosts on The View—Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Sunny Hostin, and Alyssa Farah Griffin—have consistently criticized Trump administration officials and policies.
But its constant focus on Trump and politics seems to have roiled the network’s top bosses, including Disney CEO Bob Iger and ABC News President Almin Karamehmedovic.
Almin Karamehmedovic lights the Empire State Building in Partnership with ABC News in Celebration of Nightline’s 45th Anniversary at The Empire State Building on March 28, 2025 in New York City.Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Empire State Realty Trust
Karamehmedovic convened a meeting with The View‘s executive producer Brian Teta and its hosts, and suggested the panel needed to broaden its conversations beyond its predominant focus on politics, two sources familiar with the meeting said. Karamehmedovic highlighted episodes with celebrity guests that he said were highly rated, one source said, and encouraged them to lean into such coverage moving forward.
The move was not framed as an edict, one source said, but the suggestion alone rankled the hosts. The group pushed back forcefully, with hosts like Navarro noting the show’s audience routinely seeks out its perspective on politics, especially when the administration’s radical attempts to upend the government can potentially affect their daily lives.
One source familiar with the meeting characterized the hosts as telling their boss, “‘This is what our audience wants. Isn’t it gonna look kind of bad if we’re all of a sudden not talking about politics?’”
Ultimately, the women found the requests “silly” and that “they were just going to keep doing their thing.”
Ellen Pompeo is a guest on “The View” on March 17, 2025.Al Drago/ABC via Getty Images
Still, the conversation continued to stay at top of mind for at least one of the co-hosts. During Disney’s Upfront presentation day to advertisers last week, an annual glitzy gathering where media companies seek to woo brands to advertise with their shows, Navarro had a direct conversation with Iger, according to multiple sources.
Navarro thanked Iger for allowing the hosts to continue doing their jobs in a politically turbulent environment, the sources said. Iger confirmed he supported the show—but he also reaffirmed that the show needed to tone down its political rhetoric, the sources said.
The conversation made clear the suggestion to tone down the politics went all the way to the top, the sources said.
ABC News did not comment, and a Disney spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Navarro did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Bob Iger at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Marvel Studios’ “Thunderbolts*” at Dolby Theatre on April 28, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Another source familiar with the matter said ABC will “constantly have conversations with talent based on viewer feedback, and this instance was no different,” suggesting the show’s viewers have indicated that they want the show to be less political.
Despite suggestions otherwise by ABC’s top brass, the political coverage appears not to have affected the show’s ratings. The show was the No. 1 among daytime network talk shows and news programs during 2025’s first quarter, according to TheWrap, beating time slot competitor The Faulkner Focus on Fox Newsin both total viewers and women ages 25-54, its chief advertiser-focused demographic, throughout the quarter.
Even earlier this month, it maintained that No. 1 title, beating competitors like NBC’s TODAY Third Hour and TODAY with Jenna & Friends during the week of May 5, according to ABC.
The executives’ efforts to push The View in a less political direction highlight the current difficult circumstances facing media organizations as Trump and his administration set their sights on bending them to their will over critical coverage.
Trump got Disney to pay his presidential library $15 million and $1 million in legal fees in December when he sued the network and anchor George Stephanoupolous over an interview that mischaracterized a verdict that found him liable for sexual abuse as opposed to rape. Disney made the decision in part to avoid brand damage and risk stripping press freedom protections across the industry should it have lost at trial, according toThe New York Times.
Trump has also been at legal war with CBS and its parent company Paramount Global, suing the two for $20 billion over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. CBS has called the lawsuit baseless, but as Paramount’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone seeks to merge the company with David Ellison’s Skydance Media, the company has entered into mediation talks with Trump to secure a settlement.
Federal Communications Chairman Brendan Carr, an outspoken supporter of Trump, has also launched an investigation into Disney and ABC over its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, and said the 60 Minutes interview would factor into the FCC’s review of the merger. And on Wednesday, Trump lashed out at an NBC News reporter and suggested NBC’s parent company Comcast “ought to be investigated.”
“Bob Iger writes a check for $15 million and then the FCC opens an investigation into DEI? What are they thinking?” one source said. “If anybody could stand up to Trump, it’s Bob Iger, and he already decided not to.”
The View, the long-running opinion talk show that became creator Barbara Walters’ crowning achievement in her celebrated run at ABC News, has long been a major player in the political media landscape. Democrats like Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Harris have flocked to the show’s glass-adorned table to appeal to its predominantly female audience, and arun of Democrats and Republicans appearing on the show in 2019 promptedTheNew York Times Magazine to label it the “the most important TV show in America.”
Pundits speculated whether Harris’ admission at the table that she wouldn’t have done anything differently from President Joe Biden cost her the 2024 election, highlighting the show’s political relevance.
But just as common as its friendly approach to Democrats has been its vocal criticism of Trump and his policies. The show railed against the once-View regular—Trump appeared on the show more than a dozen times before effectively shunning it ahead of the 2016 election—and Goldberg warned last year his reelection could put the U.S. “in danger.”
But Trump won the election—a month after calling its panel “degenerates”—prompting the show to figure out its next move. The Daily Beast reported at the time that it planned to invite Trump to the table, though it had no plans to add an explicitly pro-Trump panelist.
Despite the conversations with Iger and Karamehmedovic, the hosts have continued to keep politics in focus this month. The women conducted a lengthy interview with former President Joe Biden and former first lady Jill Biden ahead of a book questioning his mental decline—though it was the Biden team that approached the show about the conversation, a Biden spokesperson told the Daily Beast.
Its “Hot Topics” segment on Tuesday also featured Behar questioning “when is Jake Tapper gonna write a book about the cognitive decline of the person who is in charge right now,” and Wednesday’s episode had a segment railing against “puppy killer” Homeland Security Kristi Noem for her bungled definition of the legal concept of habeas corpus.
But hints of a balancing act have emerged. During a robust discussion last week over the question of whether Democrats needed to focus on the question of Biden’s decline or move forward to fight Trump, Griffin appeared to strike a more balanced tone by highlighting how Trump’s low approval numbers were ahead of the Democratic Party.
“This table spends a lot of time criticizing Donald Trump and a lot of it is very valid and needs to happen, but it’s a fact his approval rating is 39 percent,” she said on Friday. “However, Democrats’ is 27 percent. People felt gaslit and lied to.”
That episode continued with a panel conversation about a Reddit post that asked whether Mother’s Day cards were appropriate for women who consider pets to be their “children.”
Detained children line up in the cafeteria at the Karnes County Residential Center in Karnes City, Texas, on 10 September 2014. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP
The Trump administration is trying to end a cornerstone immigration policy that requires the government to provide basic rights and protections to child immigrants in its custody.
The protections, which are drawn from a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, limit the amount of time children can be detained by immigration officials. It also requires the government to provide children in its custody with adequate food, water and clean clothes.
The administration’s move to terminate the Flores agreement was long anticipated. In a court motion filed Thursday, the justice department argued that the Flores agreement should be “completely” terminated, claiming it has incentivized unauthorized border crossings and “prevented the federal government from effectively detaining and removing families”.
Donald Trump also tried to end these protections during his first term, making very similar arguments.
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The move to end protections follows a slew of actions by the Trump administration that target children, including restarting the practice of locking up children along with their parents in family detention. Immigration advocacy groups have alleged in a class-action lawsuit filed earlier this month that unaccompanied children are languishing in government facilities after the administration unveiled policies making it exceedingly difficult for family members in the US to take custody of them. The president and lawmakers have also sought to cut off unaccompanied children’s access to legal services and make it harder for families in detention to seek legal aid.
“Eviscerating the rudimentary protections that these children have is unconscionable,” said Mishan Wroe, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law. “At this very moment, babies and toddlers are being detained in family detention, and children all over the country are being detained and separated from their families unnecessarily.”
The effort to suspend the Flores agreement “bears the Trump administration’s hallmark disregard for the rule of law – and for the wellbeing of toddlers who have done no wrong”, said Faisal al-Juburi of the Texas-based legal non-profit Raices. “This administration would rather enrich private prison contractors with the $45bn earmarked for immigrant detention facilities in the House’s depraved spending bill than to uphold basic humanitarian protections for babies.”
The Trump administration in 2019 asked a judge to dissolve the Flores Settlement Agreement, but its motion was struck down. During the Biden administration, a federal judge agreed to partially lift oversight protections at the Department of Health and Human Services, but the agreement is still in place at the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies.
“Children who seek refuge in our country should be met with open arms – not imprisonment, deprivation and abuse,” said Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.
The settlement is named for Jenny Flores, a 15-year-old girl who fled civil war in El Salvador and was part of a class-action lawsuit alleging widespread mistreatment of children in custody in the 1980s.
Since the settlement agreement was reached in 1997, lawyers and advocates have successfully sued the government several times to end the mistreatment of immigrant children. In 2018, attorneys sued after discovering unaccompanied children had been administered psychotropic medication without informed consent.
In 2024, a court found that CBP had breached the agreement when it detained children and families at open-air detention sites at the US southern border without adequate access to sanitation, medical care, food, water or blankets. In some cases, children were forced to seek refuge in portable toilets from the searing heat and bitter cold.
President Cyril Ramaphosa meets with President Trump in the Oval Office on May 21. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In a shocking moment during President Trump‘s meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday, Trump requested that videos be displayed purporting to show evidence of violence against white people in the country.
The big picture: Trump, who cut all foreign assistance to South Africa, has embraced the false accusations of genocide against white South Africans as justification for granting them refugee status in the U.S.
A South African court in February dismissed claims of a “white genocide” asnot real.
Driving the news: In a stunning scene reminiscent of the Oval Office showdown with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump asked for the lights to be dimmed before playing the videos.
While Trump watched the video, Ramaphosa looked away, appearing uncomfortable.
At one point, speaking over the video, Trump said the screen was displaying “burial sites.” Ramaphosa inquired where the scene was located, adding, “This I’ve never seen.”
Later on, Trump paged through articles from the “last few days” while repeating, “death, death, death.”
Catch up quick: In the question that preceded the video display, a reporter asked Trump what it would take for him to be convinced there was no genocide in South Africa — an inquiry Ramaphosa answered.
“It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans,” Ramaphosa said.
Trump jumped in, saying there were “thousands of stories” and “documentaries.”
“It has to be responded to,” he said before the footage began.
Context: The video played in the Oval Office featured the voice of Julius Malema, a firebrand politician and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, who was ejected from Parliament.
Ramaphosa clarified that the utterances in the footage were not “government policy,” saying, “We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves.”
South Africa’s Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen — who is white — reiterated Ramaphosa’s point, emphasizing that the two people in the video are opposition leaders. He said his party, the Democratic Alliance, chose to join forces with Ramaphosa’s “to keep those people out of power.”
Trump interjected, “You do allow them to take land … and then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer, and when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them.”
South Africa recently passed the Expropriation Act, which allows the government to take some land and redistribute it as part of a long-running effort to lessen the racial and economic disparities created by apartheid.
Ramaphosa acknowledged there is “criminality” in the country — but said the majority of people killed have been Black people.
Trump claimed the “farmers are not Black” and said, without evidence, that people were being killed “in large numbers” and were decapitated. He repeatedly lashed out at reporters, saying, “The fake news in this country doesn’t talk about that.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Photo: Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro, who also serves as Kennedy Space Center director, a post she assumed in 2021. Trump elevated Petro to lead NASA after he ousted former Sen. Bill Nelson for believing in climate change.
Newly-released data shows that Oklahoma ranks 46th in per-pupil spending, but Walters, who is eyeing a run for governor, has called for cuts to his state’s “wasteful” education spending, including $250,000 to provide school districts with emergency inhalers.
In his KFOR interview, Walters did boast about getting new teachers a signing bonus, but as was widely reported the time, $290,000 of that money had to be clawed back because it had gone to teachers who did not qualify. Some of those teachers had already spent the money.
New: CBP seized a shipment of t-shirts from @cola.baby featuring a swarm of bees attacking a cop. The company also sells "ELIMINATE ICE" t-shirt and previously was threatened by LAPD for "FUCK THE LAPD" shirts and hats. Shirts to be "destroyed under CBP supervision"www.404media.co/cbp-seizes-s…
Rep. Beth Lear first appeared here in January 2024 when she defended her anti-trans bathroom bill by citing the “millstones” bible verse which calls for drowning anyone who hurts children.
She later blamed “depraved monster” Alfred Kinsey, liberals, and the ACLU for transgender people even existing.
Rep. Josh Williams first appeared here in July 2024 for his bill that would criminalize drag shows in the presence of children. Williams reintroduced his bill last week.
AFP
Israeli ministers said the settler outpost at Homesh will be retrospectively legalised (file photo from May 2023)AFP
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