The Israeli Knesset voted on Monday retroactively to legalise thousands of Jewish homes on West Bank outposts built on Palestinian land.
The 60 to 52 vote in favour went ahead at the insistence of Naftali Bennett, leader of the nationalist Jewish Home party, despite the wish of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, to postpone until it after his return from meeting his British counterpart Theresa May in London.
One Likud minister was quoted by the BBC as saying “This whole land is ours. All of it.”
But Isaac Herzog, the Israeli opposition leader, warned the move amounted to “de facto annexation” and could provoke international legal action against Israel.