Israeli lawmakers on Tuesday repealed a 2005 act that saw four Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank dismantled.
The development could pave the way for an official return to the abandoned West Bank areas.
It was the latest move by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to promote settlement activity in the territory.
Israel evacuated the four settlements and unilaterally pulled out of Gaza under the 2005 legislation.
Netanyahu’s government has put settlement expansion at the top of its agenda and has already advanced thousands of new settlement housing units in the West Bank.
The Palestinians seek the West Bank and Gaza Strip as an independent state, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Israel has occupied those territories since the 1967 war.
Since then, more than 700,000 Israelis have moved into dozens of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
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