FILE- A view of the compound which hosts the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. AFP
A statement posted Wednesday to the U.S. embassy's account on the social platform X said consular officers “will be providing routine passport services” to U.S. citizens Friday in the West Bank settlement of Efrat.
The embassy said a similar outreach service is planned in the coming months in the Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit, calling the services part of its “efforts to reach all Americans.”
The U.S. embassy has previously provided consular services in Ramallah and other Palestinian cities in the West Bank, as reported by AP.
The move continues a shift in policy under U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, which has been far friendlier to Israeli settlements in the West Bank than past U.S. presidents.
Several Palestinian entities condemned the U.S. move as as a formal recognition of illegal Israeli settlements and a decisive step toward the de facto annexation of the West Bank.
The resistance group Hamas stated that the step "represents a dangerous precedent and blatant alignment with the occupation's Judaization plans, as well as a practical recognition of the legitimacy of settlements and the occupation's control over the West Bank."
The group added that "this new decision reveals the blatant contradiction in the positions of the United States, which claims to reject the annexation of the West Bank while taking field steps that reinforce annexation and consolidate Israeli sovereignty over our occupied land."
For his part, Salah al-Khawaja, director of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission in the central West Bank, noted that the move is a "dangerous development toward legalizing outposts and settlements."
He added that the embassy’s announcement "is considered a challenge to the international system and to the International Court of Justice's ruling, which considers that Palestinians have full political jurisdiction over the occupied land and that settlement activity is illegal."
Meanwhile, Mustafa Barghouti, Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, described the decision as "unprecedented in American policy toward the Palestinian cause." In a statement to Anadolu Agency, he added that it is "the most dangerous development in U.S. policy, as the Trump administration has shifted from the traditional position that rejected or opposed settlements to a position that deals with and accepts them."
Israel's Foreign Ministry welcomed the US step as a 'historic decision'.
More than 3.4 million Palestinians and 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories occupied by Israel in 1967 . The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in these areas to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Most of the world considers the settlements illegal, and their impact on the ground is clear. Palestinians say the ever-expanding construction hems them in and makes it nearly impossible to establish a viable independent state.
Settler violence and army raids have increased in the West Bank since the war in Gaza began in October 2023.
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