Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced a new plan to judaise the Negev, or Naqab in Arabic, and the Galilee, vowing to replicate in Israel policies that he has pursued in the occupied West Bank.
"Today I am presenting to you the Religious Zionism plan for the judaisation of the Negev and Galilee," Smotrich said on X on Thursday.
The Negev and Galilee are in the southern and northern parts of Israel and are home to the majority of Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Smotrich said that the settlement expansion he has led in the West Bank in the past four years, would be repeated "on a massive scale" in the Negev and the Galilee as well.
"The goal: one million additional Jews in the Negev and Galilee, 40 new communities, dozens of farms, expansion of existing communities, and hundreds of thousands of housing solutions," he said.