Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement & Annexation Report. To subscribe to this report, please click here.
September 19, 2025
- Israel Advances Plans for 1,276 New Settlement Units
- Israel Tells PA It Will Act Unilaterally on Al-Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron
- Escalating Attacks, Violence, Dispossession and Takeover in Ramallah Area
- U.S. Secretary of State Attends Settler Archaeology Event in Silwan
- Bonus Reads
Israel Advances Plans for 1,276 New Settlement Units
The Israeli Civil Administration’s Higher Planning Council met on September 17th and advanced plans for the construction of 1,276 new settlement units in the West Bank.
The approved plans include:
- Elaazar: 66 new settlement units
- Ma’ale Amos: 371 new settlement units
- Ariel: 280 new settlement units
- Gitit: 281 new settlement units
- Avigail – 278 new settlement units were approved for deposit. Avigail was an illegal outpost until 2023, when the Israeli government afforded it official recognition along with nine other outposts.
- Plans for a new industrial zone in the Omerim settlement were authorized for deposit.
Israel Tells PA It Will Act Unilaterally on Al-Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron
Peace Now reports that on September 15th the Israeli Civil Administration finalized an order that seizes, for the first time, space inside the upper prayer floor in the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of the Patriarchs in order to erect a new roof over the inner courtyard. This was all done over the objections of the Palestinian Authority, which violates agreements for managing the site set out in the 1997 Hebron Protocol, which assigns planning and construction authority at the site to the Palestinian Authority. According to the settler-run Arutz Sheva outlet, the Civil Administration informed the PA about the order and insisted that the status quo arrangement is still in affect.
Peace Now reports further detail:
“The expropriation order was made possible after the Defense Ministry’s legal advisory office, recently reshaped under Minister Bezalel Smotrich, approved it. While presented as a technical step regarding an open space, in reality it constitutes a major structural change to a historic religious site, and another stage in the erosion of the fragile arrangements that safeguard access and worship at holy places. This process began four years ago, when Israel constructed an elevator at the site, despite significant public opposition, including from Israelis, and after a prolonged legal battle.”
The upper prayer hall of the Tomb of the Patriarchs contains the tombs of six religious figures: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah, alongside a Muslim prayer area. The open courtyard at its center connects the tombs and worship spaces. The existing structure was built during the Mamluk period (13th–16th centuries), on foundations dating back to Herod’s time in the 1st century BCE.
The annexationist government is playing with fire and with the security of us all. The Cave of the Patriarchs is regarded as the fourth holiest site in Islam, following Al-Aqsa Mosque, and any unilateral change is perceived by millions of Muslims as a humiliation and an attack on a sacred place. Documents recently exposed by intelligence services revealed the central role that messianic provocations on the Temple Mount — backed by the government — played in Hamas’s preparations for October 7. The government is dragging us into a religious war in the name of a messianic fringe. Anyone who truly cares about the Cave of the Patriarchs should seek an agreement with the Palestinians that would allow for consensual changes to holy sites, with the consent of all parties involved.”
Escalating Attacks, Violence, Dispossession and Takeover in Ramallah Area
The areas surrounding Ramallah have been increasingly volatile as settlers terrorize villages on the outskirts of the Palestinians’ de facto capital city.
Settlers attacked the village of Jaba’ on September 13th, just the latest in a long line of attacks since the settlers established an illegal outpost nearby in February 2025. Palestinians report setting up a night watch because of the regularity of settler arson attacks on their homes, lands and livestocks. The IDF has demolished the outpost six times, but settlers are not prevented from reestablishing it – which they do.
Last week settlers clashed with Palestinians near Deir Jarir, located northeast of Ramallah, during which a 21-year old Palestinian was shot and killed (either by settlers or an IDF soldier, reports are disputed).
The week before, settlers attacked the village of Atara, setting vehicles on first and spraying hateful graffiti.
U.S. Secretary of State Attends Settler Archaeology Event in Silwan
On September 16th, U.S. Secretary of State participated in a private ceremony inaugurating a new section of the “Pilgrim’s Road,” the excavation of which is a settler-run project in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, located in the shadow of the Old City. Rubio’s visit lends U.S. support for state-backed settler domination over the Silwan neighborhood, where settlers have conspired with the state to weaponize archaeology as a tool for mass displacement of Palestinians.
Indeed, the Pilgrim’s Road runs under the homes of residents in Silwan, and according to Emek Shaveh:
“The gradated street (no. 10 on the map) was dug as a tunnel by the Antiquities Authority and it is part of the Israeli governments’ Shalem Plan which is intended to strengthen Israeli presence in the Old City basin through extensive tourism development and archaeological excavations in Silwan and the Old City….The use of archaeology by Israel and the settlers as a political tool is a part of a strategy to shape the historic city and unilaterally entrench Israeli sovereignty over ancient Jerusalem. It is a process which is likely to produce devastating results for both Israel and the Palestinians. It is inexcusable to ignore the Palestinian residents of Silwan, carrying out extensive excavations of an underground city and to use such excavations as part of an effort to tell a historic story that is exclusively Jewish in a 4,000 year-old city with a rich and diverse cultural and religious past.”
Fakhri Abu Diab, an activist from Silwan, said told Al-Monitor:
“This act by the United States gives the green light for more settlement expansion, demolitions, ethnic cleansing, and all the practices carried out by Israel.”
Bonus Reads
- “Israel Demolishes Palestinian Village Attacked by Settlers in West Bank” (Haaretz, 9/18/25)
- “How Israel’s Education Minister Is Using School Trips to Push a Far-right Agenda” (Haaretz, 9/15/25)
- “‘An Imposition of a Political Stance’ Israeli Principals Slam Plan to Give More Funding to West Bank School Trips Over Domestic Trips” (Haaretz, 9/17/25)
- “Oscar-winning Palestinian director Basel Adra says his home in West Bank raided by Israeli soldiers” (AP, 9/14/25)
- “EU Proposes Sanctions on Israel: Suspending Trade Benefits, Targeting Far-right Ministers” (Haaretz, 9/17/25)
- “In the West Bank, Trump Is Not Standing in Israel’s Way” (New York Times, 9/19/25)
- “Editorial: Israel’s ‘Real Estate Bonanza’ Involves Wiping Gaza Off the Face of the Earth” (Haaretz, 9/19/25)
- “EU Proposes Sanctions on Israel: Suspending Trade Benefits, Targeting Far-right Ministers” (Haaretz, 9/17/25)
- “Ambassador Huckabee receives honorary Samaria citizenship” (Arutz Sheva, 9/17/25)