The number of illegal Israeli settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank has reached 592, with Israel controlling about 42 percent of the territory, a Palestinian government body said.
The figures were published by the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission in a briefing on key indicators of Israeli settlement expansion and control of Palestinian land.
The commission said 780,000 illegal Israeli settlers were living in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, as of the end of July.
Of those, around 333,600 live in illegal settlements in Jerusalem, and 446,400 elsewhere in the occupied West Bank.
Illegal Israeli settlers are spread across 192 illegal settlements and 400 settlement outposts, including 231 pastoral outposts, according to the commission.
Official Israeli orders show that Israeli control extends to 42 percent of the occupied West Bank's area of some 5,660 square kilometres, said the commission.
It added that Israel controls 71 percent of Area C and as much as 91 percent of the Palestinian Jordan Valley.
The occupied West Bank was divided into Areas A, B, and C under the 1995 Oslo II Accord.
Area A is under Palestinian administrative and security control, Area B is under Palestinian administrative and Israeli security control, whilst Area C, which makes up about 60 percent of the occupied West Bank, is under full Israeli control.
The occupied West Bank has witnessed continued escalation in Israeli military aggression and illegal settler attacks since Israel launched its genocide in Gaza in October 2023, alongside the expansion of illegal settlement outposts, construction of settler-only roads, and tighter restrictions on Palestinian movement.
