Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement & Annexation Report. To subscribe to this report, please click here.

September 12, 2025

1. Netanyahu Signs Final Approval of E-1, Celebrates End of Palestinian State
2. Netanyahu Delays Discussion of Plan to Annex the Jordan Valley
3. ‘Formalizing Apartheid’: Smotrich Presents Plan to Annex 82% of the West Bank
4. State Land Declaration to Legalize Havat Gilad Outpost
5. Settlers Establish New Enclave on Key Hebron Street (Currently) Open to Palestinians
6. West Bank News & Analysis
7. East Jerusalem News & Analysis
8. Bonus Reads

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Netanyahu Signs Final Approval of E-1, Celebrates End of Palestinian State

On September 11th, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu held a ceremony in the Ma’ale Adumim settlement to celebrate the signing of the E-1 settlement framework plan, the final approval for the construction of a settlement designed to foreclose any possibility of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu is happy to state the intention behind the settlement, saying at the ceremony that “We are going to fulfill our promise that there will be no Palestinian state, this place belongs to us.” 

Bezalel Smotrich also attended the ceremony, where he told Bibi in front of the crowd:

“Mr. Prime Minister, all of us, soon, will thank you and congratulate and celebrate together the application of sovereignty throughout Judea and Samaria.”

The signing of the E-1 framework was done as part of a massive umbrella agreement worth billions of shekels to develop the wider Ma’ale Adumim and E-1 area. Peace Now reports that  the framework includes a government commitment to invest 3 billion shekels in infrastructure for the construction of 7,600 housing units, of which about 3,400 are in E1. The plan seeks to double the population of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement and build new roads, public institutions, and other infrastructure – – furthering Israel’s de facto annexation of a huge area east of Jerusalem.

Ir Amim said in a statement:

“Today, the Israeli Government is expected to sign a government umbrella agreement with the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, which will allocate 3 billion NIS to finance and accelerate the development of the E1 and Ma’ale Adumim area. The signing ceremony will be attended by the Israeli Prime Minister, underscoring the high-level political backing for this move.

In other words, annexation par excellence.

For perspective: an umbrella agreement was signed with the Jerusalem Municipality seven years ago for the city’s development that totaled just 1 billion NIS. Despite the fact that Jerusalem has 25 times more residents than Maaleh Adumim, the settlement will receive triple what was allocated to the Jerusalem municipality. 

This comes on the heels of last month’s approval of the E1 settlement plans and publication of tenders for 3300 new housing units between Maaleh Adumim and the Mishor Adumim industrial zone. Following the recent intervention by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a percentage of these housing units will likely be sold at discounted rates as part of a government subsidized housing lottery. 

Annexation and entrenchment of Israeli apartheid on full throttle.”

Netanyahu Delays Discussion of Plan to Annex the Jordan Valley

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu postponed the Security Cabinet’s discussion of his plan to formally annex the Jordan Valley (some 30% of the West Bank). Israel Hayom reports that in preparing the plan for discussion in the Security Cabinet, Ron Dermer (Netanyahu’s Strategic Affairs Minister) worked with U.S. officials to OK the Jordan Valley plan and believes that, contrary to annexation of the full West Bank, the annexation of the Jordan Valley would receive bipartisan support in the United States. Netanyahu and Dermer reportedly framed the annexation push as a response to increasing diplomatic pressure on Israel vis a vis Gaza, particularly European promises to recognize a State of Palestine

Rumors of Netanyahu’s intent to advance the annexation of the Jordan Valley were followed quickly by two significant, headline-grabbing responses. First, Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich publicly debuted his own plan for annexation – a plan that would see Israel annex 82% of the West Bank (for more, see below), a plan that far overshadows the Netanyahu-Dermer plan. Second and in response to Smotrich’s plan, the UAE released a statement saying that annexation is a “red line” and “means there can be no lasting peace” and would “end the pursuit of regional integration” (hinting at ending the Abraham Accords, which the UAE signed in 2020). Only after the UAE statement was it reported that Netanyahu pulled Jordan Valley annexation off of the agenda for the Cabinet meeting scheduled for September 4th.

Netanyahu’s plan for a more limited annexation of the Jordan Valley is nothing new (and is of course being actively carried out in a de facto manner). Netanyahu has pushed for the de jure annexation of the Jordan Valley since at least 2019. 

The Jordan Valley is home to around 65,000 Palestinians, though ~10,000 settlers have managed to exert their control over nearly 85% of the Valley. On a weekly basis, FMEP shares reporting from the ground of settler attacks on PAlestinians communities in the Jordan Valley, new outposts, more declarations of state land or closed military zones – – all of which have violently coerced many Palestinians into leaving while Israel silently annexes the Jordan Valley.

‘Formalizing Apartheid’: Smotrich Presents Plan to Annex 82% of the West Bank 

On September 2nd, Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich held a press conference to unveil his proposal to annex 82% of the West Bank, a plan accompanied by a map (emblazoned with a government logo) leaving only six major Palestinian population centers as un-annexed land, entirely surrounded by the Israeli state. Smotrich publicly promoted his plan days after reporting that suggested Netanyahu was prepared to advance a plan to annex the Jordan Valley, which constitutes 30% of the West Bank – much less than Smotrich and his settlers allies are aiming for, and indeed working to achieve.

While showing off his proposed map, Smotrich said: 

“We have no desire to apply our sovereignty over a population that seeks our destruction. Enemies must be fought, not allowed a comfortable life. Therefore, the overriding principle for applying sovereignty is: maximum land with minimum population.”

Smotrich estimated 80,000 Palestinians live on land that he proposes annexing to Israel, and those Palestinians will be offered the status currently held only by Palestinian East Jerusalemites — a status short of full citizenship and which denies Palestinians the right to vote for the government that rules their lives. However, as Haaretz notes, Smotrich’s assertion that 80,000 live in areas his map shows as future Israeli territory does not comport with known demographics. For example, Smotrich’s map shows all of Bethlehem and its surrounding lands as annexed to Israel, and it’s estimated that the population of this area is around 200,000 Palestinians.

Smotrich proposes the un-annexed Palestinian population centers will be islands of land administered by “regional civilian management alternatives,” calling for the Palestinian Authority to be dismantled. Knesset Member Aido Touma-Sliman said:

“Smotrich’s annexation map is the clearest expression yet of this government’s fascism. It seeks to erase an entire people by redrawing borders with brutality and arrogance, turning the West Bank into fragmented prisons with no geographic continuity under Israeli sovereignty. It exposes a regime no longer hiding behind false claims of democracy, but openly pursuing fascist control over millions of Palestinians. The international community must not look away. Every endorsement, every silence, every normalization in the face of this map is complicity in the crime of apartheid and in the erasure of the Palestinian people’s right to exist.”

Smotrich’s public pitch for annexing the majority of the West Bank (and formalizing apartheid) received harsh criticism from many corners of the international community – most notably from Israel’s Abraham Accords core partner the UAE. The Trump Administration, on the other hand, not only refrained from criticism of Smotrich but repeatedly clarified for Israeli news outlets that the U.S. has never expressed opposition to Israeli annexation plans.

To be clear, Smotrich’s plan proposes a large scale of annexation of the West Bank that he is already implementing in a de facto nature (he has admitted as much repeatedly).  Since taking control over the Settlements Administration, a new division created within the Israeli Defense Ministry, Smotrich has acted as the reigning sovereign of the West Bank. With authority over all civilian matters in the West Bank and significant input on security matters, Smotrich has undertaken a mass-scale effort to annex land, increase the number of settlers, demolish/displace Palestinian communities, and hollow out the Palestinian Authority. Smotrich has fundamentally transformed Israel’s governance of the West Bank, bringing the West Bank under Israeli civilian authority and virtually eliminating the thin facade of separation between how Israel governs the occupied territories and how it governs its own sovereign territory

State Land Declaration to Legalize Havat Gilad Outpost

Peace Now reports the Israel Civil Administration has declared a huge area of land (112 acres) near Nablus to be “state land.” The land historically belonged to the Palestinian villages of Tell, Jit, and Far’ata, but in 2002 settlers illegally built the Havat Gilad outpost on privately owned land in the area and have since lobbied the Israeli government to legalize the outpost.

However – the land that has been seized does not include the land on which structures in the Havat Gilad outpost are currently built, and the seized land is, according to The Times of Israel,  a “tortuously drawn and include islands of land within the state land zone that may be privately owned by Palestinians.”

Peace Now says this is an Israeli effort to establish a new settlement, not to legalize the Havat Gilad outpost. Peace Now explained:

“…the state has declared land about one kilometer south of the outpost as “state land” for the purpose of “legalizing” it. However, the declared lands show that the vast majority of the outpost’s houses are built on private land and therefore cannot be legalized. To make the outpost “legal” according to Israel’s own rules (all settlements are illegal under international law), the existing houses would have to be demolished and the outpost rebuilt elsewhere, about a kilometer away from its current location.

It is already clear, however, that in practice no buildings will be demolished; instead, new construction will simply be added on the declared land. For decades the government has allowed the outpost to continue to seize private land and has refrained from removing the settlers. It is hard to believe that now, as it promotes formal ‘regularization,’ it will suddenly demolish homes.”

As Kerem Navot has chronicled, the Havat Gilad outpost has been the subject of controversy since it was first established by settlers in 2002. Since then, the outpost has become a source of radical, serious, and frequent violence against Palestinians. In 2014, two Havat Gilad settlers were sentenced to prison for setting Palestinian vehicles on fire in a price-tag attack; its residents have also been documented harassing Palestinian farmers and denying them access to their own lands. The Israeli NGO Yesh Din – which has documented violence emanating from Havat Gilad, including against Yesh Din employees – has filed several petitions against the outpost, including a 2010 case that resulted in the demolition of some of the outpost’s structures that were built on land Israel recognized as privately-owned by Palestinians. Yesh Din’s investigation shows that Havat Gilad was built on lands that the Israeli Civil Administration has now declared to be “state land” have in fact been continuously cultivated and privately owned by Palestinians; most of the outpost’s structures have standing (but unenforced) demolition orders issued against them.

In 2018, the Israeli government came under intense pressure from the settler lobby to legalize Havat Gilad in response to a Palestinian terror attack that killed a Havat Gilad settler — and came very close to doing so. At the time, the government ran into difficulties in legalizing the outpost because some of the illegal buildings were located on land Israel recognized as privately-owned by Palestinians, and the government could not – at that time – find a legal means by which to expropriate it.  Meanwhile, the settler killed in the attack was subsequently buried at the outpost, and as Al-Monitor explains, the presence of a cemetery in the outpost makes its future evacuation nearly impossible. Kerem Navot’s Dror Etkes spoke to Haaretz around this same time about the phenomenon of settlers being buried in the West Bank:

“Etkes tells Haaretz he believes the choice of where the cemeteries are situated – particularly when they lie on private land some distance from the nearest homes – is not a coincidence. ‘I work on the assumption that there are always deliberate intentions afoot,’ he says. The placement of a cemetery ‘is not chosen for no reason. It is a very long-term investment – and in Judaism, whoever buries people in a certain place does so on the understanding they will not be removed. Obviously, there is deliberate intent lurking behind the location of these cemeteries,’ Etkes continues, ‘and it may be assumed that whoever buries the dead on private Palestinian land knows exactly what he’s doing.’”

Settlers Establish New Enclave on Key Hebron Street (Currently) Open to Palestinians 

Settlers have taken over a building on Shallala Street in Hebron, one of the main access streets available for Palestinians to reach the Old City of Hebron and the Ibrahimi Mosque. Shallala Street runs parallel to Shuhada Street, which is closed to Palestinians. Peace Now warns the new enclave raises concern that the Israeli government or army may move to close the street to Palestinians in order to provide security to the settlers.

Peace Now said in a statement: 

“This settlement is a direct initiative of the government. The Custodian of Government Property allocated the building to the settlers, and the army opened a special passage for them to enter. The goal of establishing a settlement in the heart of Hebron’s casbah is to seize new areas of the city and displace Palestinians from them, similar to what was done in the city center around the existing settlements. The settlement in Hebron is the ugliest face of Israeli control in the territories. Nowhere else in the West Bank is apartheid so blatant. Establishing a new settlement in Hebron is a provocation that harms Israel’s political and security interests.”

On the same day as Smotrich’s presentation, Israeli forces arrested the mayor of Hebron, Tayseer Abu Sneineh. Hebron is the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank and is home to 800,000 Palestinians. Some 500 messianic Israeli settlers have been imposing their presence in the city’s old town since the 1980s, and Abu Sneineh is known for his role in a Fatah cell that planned and carried out the shooting of six Israeli and Jewish settlers in the city’s old town in 1980, locally known as the “Dabuya Operation.” After his initial arrest, Abu Sneineh was later released in a prisoner swap in 1983 alongside other members of the cell.

Abu Sneineh’s arrest came days after Israeli media outlets reported that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was considering the establishment of a tribal “emirate” in Hebron, separate from the Palestinian Authority, which first surfaced in the pages of the Wall Street Journal last July. 

Local Palestinian media speculated as to whether Abu Sneineh’s arrest was possibly a prelude to removing potential sources of local opposition to annexation, especially given Abu Sneineh’s 

West Bank News & Analysis

1. “The government is establishing a new enforcement unit that will operate in the West Bank against Palestinian construction” (Peace Now, 9/10/25)
2. “Israeli Foreign Ministry Sparks Backlash With Rosh Hashanah Outing in West Bank” (Haaretz, 9/9/25)
3. “Settlers sprayed graffiti, set vehicles on fire in Palestinian village overnight” (The Times of Israel, 9/11/2025)
4. “A New Settler Hut Popped Up in Hebron. What Followed Confirmed the Palestinian Neighbors’ Worst Fears” (Haaretz, 9/6/2025)
5. “The U.S. visa cancellations for Palestinians marks another step towards West Bank annexation” (Mondoweiss, 9/5/25)
6. “The Settlers’ Next Prize” (Al Jazeera, 9/8/2025)

East Jerusalem News & Analysis

1. “US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to attend inauguration of settler tourist site near Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount” (Peace Now, 9/8/25)
2. “A Stranglehold on Sheikh Jarrah–New Tools for Israeli Takeover and Palestinian Displacement” (Ir Amim, 9/7/25)
3. Ir Amim’s Annual Report on the State of Education in East Jerusalem, 2024-2025 School Year” (Ir Amim, August 2025)

Bonus Reads

1. “A Rogue Force Operates in Gaza Under IDF Cover, Endangering Soldiers and Unarmed Palestinians” (Haaretz, 8/4/25)
2. “Most Americans, including MAGA supporters, oppose Israeli annexation of West Bank — poll” (The Times of Israel, 9/11/25)
3. “20 years after Gaza settlement disengagement, some dream of going back” (NPR, 9/10/25)
4. “Israel Has Seen Extremists in High Office. But Nothing Like Netanyahu’s Shin Bet Pick” (Haaretz, 8/8/25)
5. “Zionism: 77 Years of Expulsion” (Hagai El Ad in Haaretz, 9/10/2025)