What are Israels West Bank settlements and why are they such a contentious issue ?
While Israel is engaged in a destructive genocidal war with Gaza, settlers are taking advantage of the limited international focus on the occupied West Bank to forcibly remove Palestinians from their property.
The International Court of Justice, the highest judicial body globally, issued a verdict that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal.This decision provoked a strong opposition from Israeli settlers and the wider settlement movement.
Settlers have gained confidence due to the actions of far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Both ministers, who assumed office in 2022, have actively advocated for the expansion of llegal settlements in the West Bank, despite the fact that such actions are in violation of international law.
According to experts, the attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7th in southern Israel resulted in the death of 1,139 people and the capture of over 250 individuals who were taken to Gaza. These attacks created a favorable political situation that allowed for the seizure of significant portions of Palestinian land, with minimal opposition or protest from the international community.
Peace Now, a nonprofit organization that monitors land confiscation in the West Bank, reports that Israel has appropriated 23.7 square kilometers (9.15 square miles) of Palestinian land this year. Meanwhile, Israel's ongoing military campaign in the Gaza Strip has resulted in the deaths of at least 40,000 Palestinians, predominantly women and children, with over 90,000 others wounded.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Israeli army and settlers have forcibly displaced at least 1,285 Palestinians and demolished over 641 structures in the West Bank alone.
A minimum of 15 Palestinian farming communities have been entirely removed, while inhabitants from various other communities have been forced to leave due to attacks by settlers. A significant number of these farmers have been compelled to seek temporary shelter in neighboring West Bank villages.
Following the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993, by former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the White House, the West Bank has been divided into three distinct zones.
Area C is under Israeli jurisdiction, Area B is under dual Palestinian-Israeli jurisdiction, and Area A is governed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was founded in 1994.
According to Abbas Milhem, the executive director of the Palestinian Farmers Union, Palestinian farming villages in Area C are the main focus of attacks by the settlers.
“Most of the ethnic cleansing is happening in the Jordan Valley against livestock farmers,” Milhem said. “Many were kicked out [of their villages] without being allowed to carry anything with them – not even mattresses or blankets for their children to sleep on.”
Following October 7, Ben-Gvir actively facilitated these attacks by supplying a large quantity of semiautomatic rifles and other weapons to settlers and far-right Israelis.
Palestinian farmers have no weapons and are unable to protect themselves.
“Farmers have nothing to protect them, just their naked chests,” Milhem said.
On November 2, 2023, Jewish settlers from the nearby Einav settlement forcefully entered the West Bank town of Deir Sharaf, resulting in a column of smoke rising above the area. This incident occurred after an Israeli individual was fatally shot while driving his automobile.
Prior to the Hamas-led attacks, the West Bank was already inhabited by a population of around 700,000 settlers. They reside in a total of 150 settlements and 128 outposts, which are makeshift encampments varying in size from a single caravan to a few buildings constructed on Palestinian lands.
Since the early 1990s, the number of settlements and outposts in the West Bank has significantly increased. According to Peace Now, there were around 250,000 settlers at that time. It is important to note that these colonies and outposts are deemed illegal under international law. The population of Israeli settlers living in Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem has increased from 800 in 1993 to over 3,000 in 2023.
There is no safe haven for Palestinians in the West Bank. Palestinians in the West Bank have been subjected to widespread violence and intimidation.
During the month of February alone, Israeli settlers engaged in acts of aggression against Palestinian shepherds in the vicinity of Hebron. These acts involved forcibly removing the shepherds from their grazing lands and utilizing drones to intimidate their livestock. As a result, the pregnant sheep experienced the unfortunate outcomes of miscarriages and stillbirths, which occurred during the lambing season. During the period from October 7 to February 20, OCHA documented a total of 561 instances of Israeli settler violence on Palestinians.
In April, there was another incident where groups of settlers launched attacks on the villages of Kufur Malik, Deir Dibwan, and Burqa. These villages are under the administration of the Palestinian Authority in Areas A and B. The attackers vandalized the tents where displaced people were seeking shelter, stole goats, and physically assaulted inhabitants.
In addition, Israeli soldiers have conducted many incursions into the West Bank since the commencement of the genocial war in Gaza. In November, a significant incursion occurred in Jenin, resulting in the encirclement of hospitals and the tragic demise of multiple lives. Subsequent to this, more raids were conducted later in the month in Jenin and other locations in the West Bank.
In late December, Israeli forces initiated a synchronized overnight offensive against 10 cities in the West Bank, namely Halhul, Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem, Jericho, El-bireh, and Ramallah, which serves as the administrative center of the Palestinian Authority. The raids persisted for a number of days.
In January, a covert operation conducted by undercover agents resulted in the death of three individuals at a hospital in Jenin. Subsequent raids have been carried out across the West Bank at consistent intervals since that time. In June, around 100 individuals were rounded up following the use of helicopter gunships by the Israeli military during a significant invasion of the Jenin refugee camp, resulting in the demise of five individuals.
“There is no place in the West Bank that is safe [for people to go],” Milhem said. “Whether it is Area A or Area B, it doesn’t matter. The settlers and the army are attacking everywhere.”
Since October 7 In the West Bank alone, Israeli forces and settlers have killed over 620 Palestinians, including 145 women and children, and injured more than 5,600 individuals. Most of them were civilians.
By contrast, Israeli soldiers were responsible for the death of 199 Palestinians over the first nine months of 2023.
According to Mairav Zonszein, an expert on Israel-Palestine for the International Crisis Group, the increase in Palestinian fatalities is directly linked to Israel's efforts to expedite the annexation of the West Bank.
Zonszein stated that settlers maintain the belief that Israel's security is contingent upon the construction and enlargement of illegal settlements, despite the presence of data that contradicts this notion.
“Since October 7, the government is more emboldened to carry out attacks in the West Bank, and they are engaged in collective punishment,” Zonszein said.
“They are driven by the idea that they need to keep building [settlements].”
A Palestinan seen navigating between vehicles that have been set on fire during an assault carried out by Israeli settlers in response to the killing of two Israeli settlers by a Palestinian gunman near Huwara in the West Bank, which is under Israeli occupation. This incident occurred on February 27, 2023.
The international community has responded to all of this by imposing sanctions on a few number of settlers.
In February, the administration of United States President Joe Biden put a freeze on the assets of four Israeli settlers who were involved in assaulting Palestinians and Israeli activists.
On July 11, the United States implemented additional sanctions against 3 more Israeli settlers and 4 Israeli outposts.
The sanctions result in the complete immobilization of all financial resources owned by the individuals identified, within regions subject to the authority of the United States.
Subsequently, within the same week, the European Union declared comparable measures targeting several settlers and settler "entities". The restrictions effectively immobilized their assets and prevented them from engaging in financial activities, whether directly or indirectly.
According to Omar Rahman, an expert on Israel-Palestine affairs from the Middle East Council for Global Affairs think tank in Doha, Qatar, the imposition of sanctions on persons and unlawful outposts establishes a significant precedent.
Nevertheless, Rahman asserted that the penalties are insufficient to impede Israel's construction of settlements.
He supported the imposition of penalties on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, aligning with the stance of Israeli and international human rights organizations.
“[Confiscating Palestinian land] is a process that has been in motion for over 100 years whereby Palestinians have been steadily pushed off their land by the Zionist movement,” Rahman Said
“But these guys [Smotrich and Ben-Gvir] are specifically dedicated to that goal. Their position is to dispossess Palestinians entirely.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli Minister of National Security and leader of the Jewish Power party, and Bezalel Smotrich, the Minister of Finance and leader of the Religious Zionist Party, participate in a gathering with their supporters in the southern Israeli city of Sderot.
On May 29, the Israeli army's Civil Administration, founded in 1981 to supervise civil affairs for Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents in Area C of the West Bank, transferred authority over building regulations and the running of farmland, forests, and parks, among other responsibilities, to the Settlements Administration, headed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Thus, Smoltrich was granted the power to expedite and authorize the establishment of settlements, while increasing the rate at which Palestinian homes are demolished.
Furthermore, Smotrich issued a warning statement, indicating his intention to exert influence on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to formally incorporate the West Bank into Israeli territory in the event that the International Court of Justice declares Israel's occupation of the region to be unlawful, which it did.
In the latter part of June, Smotrich authorized the establishment of five Israeli outposts in response to the symbolic recognition of a Palestinian state by Norway, Ireland, and Spain.
“The response to the recognition of statehood … was a show of defiance and a message [that the global community] can make all the rulings they want, but Israel is the one in control,” Rahman said.
Smotrich has also issued a warning to annex the West Bank in response to the Palestinian Authority's “unilateral efforts” to secure recognition for a Palestinian state, as well as their pursuit of arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court against Israeli leaders involved in war crimes in Gaza.
Rahman asserted that Israel will continue its displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank and perpetration of "genocide" in Gaza unless the international community takes collective action against Israel.
“There needs to be massive mobilisation of punitive measures against Israel. That is the only way for there to be any movement towards a political resolution,” Rahman said.