June 4, 2026: The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission is following with grave concern the Israeli occupation Knesset's approval of a new law granting extensive tax benefits to residents of dozens of colonies built on occupied Palestinian territory. This move once again confirms the occupation government's determination to deploy all Israeli resources to deepen the settler-colonial project and enhance the appeal of colonies at the expense of the Palestinian people's national rights.
Under the new law, residents of 58 colonies will enjoy income tax reductions of up to 7%, with an annual ceiling of 10,000 NIS per person. The annual cost of these benefits is estimated at approximately 130 million NIS, reflecting the scale of direct financial support the occupation government allocates to colonies and their residents.
The Head of the commission, Minister Muayad Sha'ban, stated that this law represents a new link in the chain of incentives and facilitations that successive Israeli governments have provided to colonizers, encompassing infrastructure, housing, services, education, and transportation. These are all aimed at encouraging relocation to colonies, boosting their demographic growth, and entrenching their presence on occupied Palestinian land.
He stressed that the security pretexts put forward by the occupation government to justify these privileges are nothing more than political cover for colonial expansion policies, particularly given that the colonies benefiting from the law are experiencing rapid population growth and already receive high levels of government support compared to other areas within Israel.
He added that the law reflects the extent of influence the colonial movement has come to wield within Israeli decision-making institutions, where legislation and financial policies are increasingly becoming tools serving an annexation and colonial expansion agenda, ensuring the consolidation of facts established by colonies on the ground over past decades.
He further emphasized that the continued granting of economic privileges to colonies established illegally under international law constitutes direct encouragement of colonial expansion and entrenches a discriminatory system built on allocating resources and benefits to colonizers at the expense of the Palestinian people living under occupation.
Mr. Sha'ban also considered this law part of a comprehensive package of legislative, administrative, and financial measures being implemented by the occupation government to bolster colonization activity and accelerate de facto annexation plans for the West Bank, in flagrant violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions affirming the illegality of Israeli colonies on occupied Palestinian territory.
The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission called on the international community to treat these policies as part of an integrated colonial system that goes beyond mere construction of colonies to encompass the channeling of public resources and economic incentives in service of an illegal colonial project aimed at altering the demographic, geographic, and political reality of the occupied Palestinian territory.
Mr. Sha'ban concluded that the occupation government no longer views the occupied Palestinian territory as land governed by the rules of international law, but rather treats it as a political and electoral asset to be leveraged in competition among far-right parties. The financial, tax, and economic incentives granted to colonizers come within the context of a fierce race to attract the colonial movement's constituency and bolster its demographic presence in the West Bank within a vision premised on expanding colonization and accelerating the imposition of facts on the ground. These policies fall within the framework of declared Israeli plans targeting a doubling of colonizers numbers, most notably what is known as the "Million Colonizers Plan," transforming colonization from an expansionist colonial project into a central tool for reshaping Palestinian geography and barring any possibility of establishing an independent, territorially contiguous Palestinian state.