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

June 5, 2026

1. WEST BANK: E-1 Update; High Council Advances Plans for 2,162 New Units; Archaeology Annexation Bill is Stopped for Now; Tax Break for Settlers; WZO Eases Land Purchase Rules
2. Further Reading

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WEST BANK

E-1 Update

As previously reported, tenders for the construction of the E-1 settlement were scheduled to be published/opened on June 1st – – but as of reporting the tenders have not been published. Terrestrial Jerusalem founder and Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann cautions that delays are normal and alarm should remain high:

“In the past, this [delay] would be very much in line with Netanyahu’s modus operandi: bluster, but at the last moment make E-1 go away without leaving fingerprints. However, with Smotrich breathing down his neck and elections approaching, Netanyahu will be called out if he silently freezes E-1. He is not likely to do that.”

On June 3rd, 85 members of the U.S. Congress penned a letter to Secretary of State Rubio urging action to stop the construction of E-1. On  the same day, a group of EU representatives visited Khan al-Ahmar, the bedouin community that stands to be forcibly transferred from their land by Israel in order to enable the construction of the E-1 settlement. At the United Nations, the Arab Group (an official regional and political coalition composed of 22 member states representing the Arab nations), issued a statement touching on many Israeli annexationist moves including E-1, urging strong opposition and increased pressure on the Israeli government to back off.

 

2,162 New Settlement Units Advanced

On June 3rd, the Israeli High Planning Council advanced the construction of 2,162 new settlement units, including plans for two new settlements. The plans advanced this week were:

• Hamivesher (a new settlement): The Council approved for deposit a plan for the construction of 234 new settlement units in the outpost of Hamivesher, which would authorize its as a legal (under Israeli law only) settlement. Until now, the Hamivesher outpost has been laundered through the planning process as a “neighborhood” of the Kiryat Arba settlement but is more properly understood as its own settlement. The Hamivesher settlement is detached from Kiryat Arba, located some ~800 meters north.

• Gvaot: The Council gave final approval for the construction of 1,006 new units in the Gvaot settlement, located west of Bethlehem. There are only a few dozen families currently living in the Gvaot settlement, so this plan represents a massive expansion and its transformation into a more established and urban settlement. Gvaot was built illegally by settlers and initially laundered as a “neighborhood” of the Alon Shvut settlement despite being detached from it. The government authorized Gvaot as an independent settlement in March 2025.
• Har Bracha: The Council approved a plan for 922 new units in the Har Bracha settlement, located south of Nablus. If given final approval, this plan will triple the size of Har Bracha, which is known to be particularly violent towards surrounding Palestinian communities.

Celebrating the approvals, Bezalel Smotrich said:

“This is not just a planning step, but a national development that solidifies our hold on the territory, strengthens Israel’s security, and establishes clear facts that prevent the establishment of an Arab terrorist state in the heart of the country.”

 

Bibi Stops (for now) Annexation-Via-Archaeology Bill

It’s widely reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu has intervened to stop the advancement of a bill that would annex heritage and archaeological sites across the West Bank and Gaza. Emek Shaveh warns the bill is not dead yet:

“it is important to emphasize that the bill has yet to be withdrawn (a procedure that we will demand). And as long as it remains within the legislative process, it can be revived relatively quickly. Since it has already passed its first reading, a future government or coalition could apply legislative continuity and resume the process from the point at which it was halted. In practical terms, the bill remains very close to being ready for second and third readings.”

 

Israel Seizes Herodium Archaeological Site & Surrounding Land

The Israeli Civil Administration issued an expropriation order for the Herodium archaeological site – which Israel had already seized and declared an Israeli national park – and surrounding areas, totalling 320 dunams (80 acres). The Herodium site is located on a hilltop south east of Bethlehem, in Area C, surrounded by settlements. This is at least the third archaeological annexation of the year, following the expropriation at the Nabi Samwil site last week and at the Sebastia site in February 2026.

Peace Now said in a statement:

”The government is trying to exploit every moment before the elections to create additional facts on the ground that will advance the full annexation of the West Bank. Tourist and archaeological sites constitute another form of settlement. Their purpose is not only to seize extensive areas of land but also to shape public consciousness, marginalize the Palestinian connection to the land, and transform this country into a land exclusively for Jews, both physically and in terms of heritage. This policy condemns us to many more years of a painful and bloody conflict that can only be resolved through a compromise over this land, which is precious to both Israelis and Palestinians.”

 

Tax Break for Settlers aka Looting Public Funds for Settlers

This week by a vote of 32-23 the Knesset passed a bill that grants a 7% tax break (capped at NIS 10,000 per year) to residents of 58 specified settlements – most of which are settlements which support, based on voting data, Bezalel Smotrich’s political party (an earlier version of the bill sought to benefit all settlements, but was shrunk to 58 settlements when the cost was estimated at 450million NIS annually). Ostensibly, the 58 settlements were selected based on distance from Israel’s Separation Barrier and the use for armored school buses for children.

Peace Now – which said the move is “a brazen move of looting public funds” – said in a statement: 

“The proposal to grant tax benefits to settlements is brazen greed on the part of settlement leaders. No sector in the country receives more benefits and public investment than the settlers, and there is no justification whatsoever for adding tax breaks that would simply plunder the public treasury for the benefit of a small minority within the government’s political base.”

 

WZO Eases Rules on Land Purchases

The World Zionist Organization recently announced that it will begin allowing settlers to buy a second residential plot of land. Until now, the WZO closely controlled land management and most settlers do not own the land on which their houses are situated, instead they have long term leases on the land via the WZO.

 

Bonus Reads

1. “Israeli Settlers Wound Three Palestinians in Attack Near West Bank’s Hebron, Medics Say” (Haaretz, 6/5/26)
2. “Seven Palestinians Wounded in West Bank Settler Raid, Some by IDF Fire” (Haaretz, 5/30/26)
3. “Digitally annexing the West Bank: Israel moves its theft of Palestinian land online” (Mondoweiss, 6/3/26)
4. “Who Will Stop Smotrich, if Not The Hague?” (Haaretz, 6/3/26)

West Bank

Israel Expropriates Nabi Samwil Antiquity Site Currently Managed by the Muslim Waqf

The Israeli Civil Administration issued an expropriation order to seize the Nabi Samwil antiquity site, located just north of Jerusalem’s municipal boundary in the Palestinian village of Nabi Samwil. The seizure order affects a mosque that is currently managed by the Palestinian Authority’s Muslim Waqf, marking the first time Israel has unilaterally taken control of a holy site owned by the Waqf. In addition to the mosque, Israel has expropriated the archaeological site around the mosque, a spring, agricultural lands, and access roads leading to the area – a total of 109.79 dunams (27 acres).

The Civil Administration explained it was seizing the site “for the public benefit, for the purposes of undertaking a development project to preserve the archaeological site of the Prophet Samuel’s tomb,” claiming that there are safety issues in the compound. Israel is advancing development plans for several other significant antiquity sites that have been under Palestinian control across the West Bank, most notably Sebastia.

Peace Now said in a statement: 

“Once again, we find ourselves confronting decisions by the Civil Administration, operating under Minister Smotrich, that are intended to expand and deepen annexation. From plans to expand settlements and unprecedented declarations of ‘state land,’ the Civil Administration has moved on to taking control of heritage sites and is now appropriating religious sites, creating tension in some of the most peaceful and sensitive places in the West Bank. The messianic agenda of the Israeli government should have been stopped long ago. Instead, each passing day appears to further endanger us and create the conditions for transforming a political conflict into a religious war.”

The Palestinian village of Nabi Samwil  is located on a strategic and highly prized hilltop (inside of an area Israel post-facto declared a national park) just outside of the municipal borders of Jerusalem but on the Israeli side of the separation barrier — placing residents (who have West Bank ID cards) in a Kafka-esque situation wherein they are cut off from both Jerusalem and the West Bank (legally they are forbidden from taking the one road out of the village into Jerusalem, since they are West Bankers, and the West Bank is accessible only via a circuitous route that passes through an Israeli checkpoint – for background see: The Palestinian village where Israel forbids everything). The suffocation of Nabi Samwil is in line with Israel’s long-time ambitions to completely de-populate the village and take control of the land.

 

Israel Takes Another Step Towards Forcible Transfer of Khan Al-Ahmar

Ir Amim reports the Civil Administration issued a seizure order for a strip of land running through the Khan al-Ahmar bedouin community’s land to enable the construction of a new water line between two nearby settlements, Mishor Adumim and Kfar Adumim. The seizure order was issued the same day, May 19th, that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed to move forward with the long-stalled forcible transfer of Khan al-Ahmar.

Ir Amim further details:

“Moreover, the water line is clearly not intended to serve Khan al-Ahmar or other Palestinian communities in the area. It is rather designed to upgrade infrastructure for the settler population in the E1/Maaleh Adumim area. Since Kfar Adumim is already connected to water infrastructure, the new line likely indicates preparations for the expansion of Kfar Adumim and/or other nearby settlements.”

 

Bibi Requests Review of Annexation via Antiquities Bill

The Times of Israel reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu has directed his Cabinet Secretary to prepare a comprehensive review of a bill to annex antiquity sites in the West Bank and Gaza. Bibi’s request might be intended to delay or scuttle the bill, which has faced heavy international criticism in addition to opposition by Israeli legal advisors and defense experts. Just this week the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee Legal Adviser Tami Sela wrote a position paper criticizing the bill saying that it “contradicts” international law, specifically with regard to the bill’s application to Areas A & B in the West Bank and to Gaza. The Israeli army has also expressed opposition.

In addition to fast-tracking a bill to create an Israeli civilian authority to control antiquity sites in all areas of the West Bank and Gaza, the Israeli government is simultaneously proceeding with the appointment of a new head of the Israel Antiquities Authority that is both unqualified and clearly political. A group of 60 archaeologists petitioned the Knesset this week to block the appointment.

 

Israel Launches Online West Bank Land Registration System

On May 27th the Israeli government launched an electronic registration system for the “Land Registry and Settlement of Rights” for Area C of the West Bank. The online system is an instrument for the implementation of a February 2026 decision by the Israeli Security Cabinet to publish the West Bank land registry and to revive a “State Land Acquisition Committee.” These moves are best understood as a way to annex the West Bank, to help facilitate settler claims over disputed and/or unregistered land, and to spur the proactive government purchases of West Bank land for the purpose of settlement expansion. 

The Palestinian Authority urged Palestinians to withhold information from Israeli entities working on the registration system, which Birzeit University’s Institute of Law argues consolidates Israeli dominance, marginalizes the Palestinian Authority, legitimizes settlement expansion, and creates irreversible facts on the ground.

Following the Security Cabinet’s February 2026 decisions, the full Israeli Cabinet quickly approved the decisions and allocated a four-year, $78 million (NIS 244.1 million) budget to establish a mechanism (with up to 35 employees) for updating the records in Area C of the West Bank. The Israeli Justice Ministry is tasked with carrying out the land registration process, effectively transferring sovereignty over Area C from the Israeli military to Israeli civilian governance, clear annexation. According to Peace Now, the process of land registration in Area C carried out will lead to the wide scale dispossession of Palestinians from the area. The Cabinet set a target goal of completing the land registration process for 15% of Area C within the next five years.

Yara Asi explains for the Arab Center DC:

“Israel’s February 2026 decisions mark a turning point in the governance of the West Bank. While presented as administrative measures, they collectively restructure land, authority, and law in ways that extend beyond the logic of temporary occupation. Through land registration, control is converted into ownership; through governance reforms, Israeli authority is extended across territorial lines; and through judicial changes, the limited constraints on these processes are further weakened. Together, these developments reflect a shift from managing occupied territory to integrating it into Israel.

This transformation carries significant legal and political implications. By embedding control within legal and institutional frameworks, these measures reduce the prospect of reversal and reshape the conditions for any future political settlement. In this sense, they illustrate a broader strategy of annexation through law—one that proceeds without formal declaration yet produces many of its defining effects.”

Itay Epshtain posted on X:

“The system, codenamed “Grenade”, was launched this morning and openly endorsed by Ministers Smotrich and Strook as “a central pillar in applying sovereignty in the territory and strengthening our hold and roots in Judea and Samaria.”

The candor is striking. What was once advanced incrementally, is now pursued through digitized cadastral engineering. A land registry presented as bureaucratic modernization is, in substance, an instrument for the consolidation of unlawful territorial acquisition.

International law is neither ambiguous nor silent. An occupying Power is prohibited from annexing occupied territory, permanently appropriating public or private property outside the strict limits of military necessity, or altering the legal status of the territory under occupation. Yet this is precisely what is now occurring, in broad daylight, through administrative and technological means designed to render unlawful presence increasingly irreversible.”

As a reminder, only one-third of West Bank land was registered and titled (under the British Mandatory government and then continued by Jordan) when Israel seized control of the West Bank and froze land registration proceedings. The publication of the West Bank land registry is something the settlement movement has pushed for in order to be able to identify landowners in all areas of the West Bank and approach them for purchase, which – with the repeal of the ban on the sale of land to non-Arabs – settlers can now do outright. Opening the land registry will help facilitate settler claims over disputed and/or unregistered lands, making Palestinians vulnerable to further settler harassment regarding the sale of land.

As reported by Israel Hayom in 2020, the Israeli land registration process would first require a survey of the land, after which time anyone claiming ownership could present documents to the Israeli government seeking to prove their ownership. In the case of land where Israel recognizes no valid ownership claims – including cases where Palestinians do not have documentation that Israel will accept – Haaretz has previously reported that the process gives heavy weight to whomever currently controls the land (e.g., if a settler has built illegally on Palestinian land and lived there, under the protection of the IDF, the process will give weight to their claim absent overwhelming documentation, accepted by Israel, from the Palestinian owner). The registration decisions can be appealed, but once the claims are resolved by an Israeli official appointed to oversee the process, no further appeal is possible. Moreover, all “unclaimed” land – that is, land over which Israel does not recognize any legal ownership, will automatically become “state land.

Shlomo Zacharia, a land lawyer working with Yesh Din, further explained how the process of Israeli-controlled land registration will dispossess Palestinians, saying:

“If a village has 30 plots, with [specific, documented] ownership claims on only 20 of those, the other ten automatically transfer to the state. If you haven’t filed a claim of ownership, it goes to the state. Period. The arrangement will primarily benefit the Civil Administration and the settlers, since most of the land allocated by the state goes to settlers, and because the arrangement process (in Israel and the West Bank) favors the person holding the land in practice.”

 

Israel Seizes  Area A Land Inside Jenin for Army Base

972 Magazine reports the Israeli army seized land inside of the Palestinian village of Jenin, on a hilltop overlooking the Jenin refugee camp, in order to establish an army base. Dror Etkes (Kerem Navot) reports the seizure order coupled with newly paved military roads nearby suggest Israel has plans to establish a large military base there, marking the first time since the signing of the Olso Accords that Israeli seized land in Area A for a military base. Etkes ties the move to the broader Israeli government move to expand settlements around the Jenin area. Etkes says:

“There are more than 100 new settlements [including outposts] in the West Bank, and 15 in the Jenin area alone,” he said. “This is not just going back to the four settlements dismantled in 2005. It is something much larger. This is [Israel] reestablishing a military presence in the Jenin area, The only reasonable interpretation is that it is directly related to the biggest settlement boom in the West Bank…The aim is to strengthen the settlements that already exist along these routes, effectively surrounding Jenin and disconnecting it from its immediate rural surroundings. These are methods that we recognize from settlement expansion patterns elsewhere.”

Bonus Reads

1. “Humanitarian Situation Report | 25 May 2026” (OCHA)
2. “Pastoral Settlement: Dispossession, Forced Displacement and the Erosion of Livestock-Based Livelihoods in the Context of Eid al-Adha” (Balasan Initiative, 5/26/26)
3. “The Four Steps Israel Is Taking to Clear Palestinians From West Bank’s E1 Area” (Haaretz, 5/27/26)
4. “’They stole our sheep, killed my son’: Israeli settlers, soldiers attack and loot West Bank villages” (Middle East Eye, 5/27/26)
5. “In West Bank, Latest Victim of Israeli Settler Violence Shocks in a New Way” (New York Times, 5/22/26)
6. “Likud minister says resettlement of Gaza should be on party’s official election platform” (The Times of Israel, 5/26/26)
7. “Smotrich’s Bid for Political Survival Relies on Bribing Israeli Settlers” (Haaretz, 5/28/26)
8. “Israel Has Physically Divided Gaza With Over 25 Kilometers of Earthen Barriers” (Drop Site, 5/25/26)

 

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

May 22, 2026

1. WEST BANK: Smotrich Orders Khan Al-Ahmar Demolition; Knesset Fast-Tracks Annexation-via-Archaeology; Smotrich Leads Settlers to Joseph’s Tomb
2. EAST JERUSALEM: Flag March and Related Government Action
3. STATE-BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM: EU Sanctions
4. BONUS READS

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WEST BANK

Smotrich Orders Khan al-Ahmar Cleared, as E-1 Plan Advances

On May 19th, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that he had ordered preparations for the forcible displacement and demolition of the Khan al-Ahmar, the bedouin village located just east of Jerusalem in an area that needs to be cleared in order for the construction of the E-1 settlement. The destruction of the community is expected to move forward in the coming days, as the publication of tenders for the construction of the E-1 settlements is scheduled for June 1st and bids will close on June 6th.

Amnesty International says that, if implemented, the forcible transfer of Khan al-Ahmar is a war crime.  Smotrich said he issued the order after the International Criminal Court notified him that it was prepared to issue an arrest warrant against him, along with National Security Minister Ben Gvir, Settlement Minister Orit Strock, and two IDF officials.

The E-1 settlement will see the construction of 3,401 new settlement units on a site located northeast of Jerusalem that is home to several Palestinian bedouin communities, comprising 3,000 people, including about 300 residents of Khan al-Ahmar. The residents of Khan al-Ahmar have lived and worked on this land since the 1950s – when the community was forced to leave their land in the Negev during the 1948 war. There has been a decades long drama over the Israeli government’s plans to construct the E-1 settlement, which has long been held as a red-line for Israel that the international community had been willing to step up to maintain.

Terrestrial Jerusalem’s Danny Seidemann explains:

“Why Khan al-Ahmar? Israel has delineated the area under its exclusive control in the occupied West Bank between Jerusalem and the Jordan River Valley. It has consolidated its hold by large and medium-sized settlements, and “illegal” outposts. It has neutralized the Palestinian presence, and has seamlessly integrated the area into pre-1967. Multi-lane highways, tunnels, and bridges have erased the Green Line.
There is little doubt that this reality is tantamount to de facto annexation.

If that be so, why is Israel so obsessed with the displacement of the few hundred 

Bedouin of Khan al-Ahmar that it is willing to bear universal opprobrium in order to evacuate the hamlet?

The answer is simple: because Khan al-Ahmar and similar Bedouin encampments are the final obstacle standing in the way of de jure annexation.

In 1967, Israel annexed East Jerusalem. It did so without extending Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians residing in the annexed areas. The Palestinians of East Jerusalem enjoy certain personal entitlements, but no political rights.”

Balasan Initiative explains:

“The evacuation of Khan Al-Ahmar violates the International Criminal Law (ICL) and International Humanitarian Law (IHL), which prohibit the forcible transfer of protected persons from territory under occupation…particularly in light of the retaliatory intentions of Smotrich following the ICC arrest warrant proceedings, the planned evacuation of Khan Al-Ahmar remains unlawful, unjustified, and incompatible with international humanitarian law. 

Hence, alongside the humanitarian consequences that would result from the demolition of the village and the forcible displacement of its residents, the destruction of Khan Al-Ahmar must also be understood within the broader framework of territorial fragmentation and settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territory. The village’s strategic location within the E-1 corridor renders its removal politically and geographically significant, as it would facilitate the territorial linkage between Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem while further isolating East Jerusalem from the remainder of the West Bank. Such measures undermine the contiguity and viability of a future Palestinian state and reinforce irreversible demographic and geographic changes on the ground.”

Peace Now said in a statement:

“Minister Smotrich seeks to take revenge on The Hague and the international community at the expense of one of the most vulnerable communities, which for years has struggled simply for the right to live on the small piece of land in its possession. The expulsion of Khan al-Ahmar is part of a broader government plan to take control of the entire central West Bank area, build in E1, and remove all Palestinian communities from the region. This is a cynical and destructive plan that could devastate the prospects for future peace and a resolution of the conflict, as part of Smotrich and his allies’ annexation agenda.”

Knesset Fast-Tracks Annexation-via-Archaeology

On May 20th, the Israeli Knesset passed a bill allocating $86 million (NIS 250 million) for developing archaeological and heritage sites across the West Bank. In addition to this huge budget investment, on May 11th the Knesset began fast-tracking a separate bill that would outright annex heritage, antiquities, and archaeological sites to Israel by bringing them under direct Israeli civilian control. That bill is being finalized by the relevant Knesset Committee and expected to be ready for its second  and third readings and vote on Sunday, May 24th. For further information on the bill, see this detailed paper opposing the bill by Emek Shaveh.

If approved, the annexation bill will create a new Israeli civilian authority under the Heritage Ministry given exclusive authority to develop and manage West Bank heritage sites, taking those authorities away from the Israeli Defense Ministry. The new body in the Heritage Ministry would have the power to acquire or expropriate land for the purpose of protecting, conserving, researching, and developing heritage sites. In an added absurdity, Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu recently announced he has selected Esther Schreiber as the next head of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), that is in despite of the fact Schreiber has no background in archaeology and lacks experience in managing large public institutions. 

Emek Shaveh said:

“The political appointment at the Israel Antiquities Authority and the proposed Heritage Authority Law for the West Bank are two sides of the same coin: transforming archaeology from a tool of research into an instrument of propaganda in the service of annexation, dispossession, and a messianic ideology.”

The Haaretz Editorial Board writes:

“The proposed new agency will be another tool by which the government will be able to abuse its Palestinian subjects in the West Bank (it will have the authority to expropriate land) and to harness archaeology to the needs of the settlers. The bill also amounts to annexation, in violation of international law. The bill, like Schreiber’s appointment, was advanced despite overwhelming opposition from Israel’s archaeological community, which already faces boycotts abroad that hinder its operation. It can only be hoped that the government is replaced before Eliyahu & Co. also manage to destroy Israeli archaeology.”

Smotrich Leads Settler Raid on Joseph’s Tomb

On May 14th Finance Minister Smotrich led a group of over 100 settlers on a trip to Joseph’s Tomb for morning prayers, the heritage site in Nablus as Israel expands the scope and scale of Israeli presence there. Smotrich promised to control the site and said during his visit:

“Our presence here at Joseph’s Tomb, in broad daylight, is a clear statement: the people of Israel are returning home to all parts of their land…Joseph’s Tomb is living testimony to the inseparable connection between the people of Israel and their land.”

As a reminder, Joseph’s Tomb is a holy site for Jews and cultural site for Palestinians, located in the heart of Nablus. The tomb is located within Area A of the West Bank (where Israel does not, under the Oslo Accords, have direct control). However, Joseph’s Tomb is one of two sites in Area A which the Oslo Accords stipulate are under the control of the Israeli military. As such, it has been a perennial flashpoint, largely due to deliberately provocative actions by settlers.

In January 2026, Israeli Defense Minister Katz agreed to allow settlers to perform morning prayers at Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus for the first time in 25 years, and on January 29th, Israeli ministers and settler leaders led a group of 1,500 people under a heavy security escort to Joseph’s Tomb. In 2000 during the Second Intifada, Israeli officials restricted Israeli access to the site to nighttime hours in hopes of minimizing conflict.

 

EAST JERUSALEM

Israel to Expropriate Land/Homes/Business on Chain Gate Road

Ir Amim reports that on May 17th – Jerusalem Day – the Israeli government approved the establishment of an inter-ministerial committee tasked with advancing land expropriation of dozens of properties along the Chain Gate road in the Old City. The move would displace generations-old Palestinian family homes and businesses  in the Muslim Quarter. Ir Amim explains:

“The decision refers to a 1968 land expropriation order for an area within Jerusalem’s Old City, which served as the basis for the expropriation of properties in the Jewish Quarter and the displacement of its Palestinian residents at the time. According to the new government decision, the expropriation order issued 58 years ago was never fully implemented. This specifically concerns properties along the southern side of Chain Gate Street (Bab al-Silsila Street), a strategic and central corridor along the seamline between the Muslim and Jewish Quarters that connects Jaffa Gate directly to Al-Aqsa/Temple Mount. See exaction location on map below.

The government now appears poised to advance the expropriation of these properties under a decades-old order, with the new committee tasked with devising the mechanism for its implementation. The committee has been instructed to complete an action plan within 12 months.”

The Flag March

As in years past, thousands of radical Israeli settlers staged a violent rampage – the “Flag March” – through the Old City on Jerusalem Day, bringing destruction and chaos with them as they attempted to show dominance and control over the city. As usual, the crowds shouted “Death to Arabs” and “May your village burn,” and gangs of young settlers were filmed attacking shopkeepers and one Israeli journalist.

Israel Ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir joined the parade this year, with Ben Gvir leading a large group into the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound – waiving the Israeli flag in front of the Dome of the Rock. Ir Amim explained the significance of this event:

“The erosion of the status quo at Al-Aqsa cannot be separated from the Flag March itself. In the lead-up to the march, we warned about the growing influence of Temple movements and the support they receive from organizers and participants alike. Throughout the march, countless shirts and flags called for the construction of a Third Temple — in even greater numbers than in previous years — alongside signs reading: “This is not Al Aqsa, this is the Temple Mount!” and “You wanted a massacre? You’ll get a Nakba!” Meanwhile, in the markets of the Old City, Palestinian shop owners were forced by police to close their businesses to clear the area for marchers. Year after year, the daily lives and livelihoods of Palestinian residents are disrupted and undermined to facilitate the march’s passage through the Damascus Gate plaza and Muslim Quarter.

Throughout the march, racist and violent chants filled the streets, including: “May your village burn,” “May your name be erased,” and “Slaughter Nablus.” Palestinian residents and solidarity activists were assaulted, while shops and property were vandalized — all under heavy police presence and with little meaningful intervention. Many Palestinian residents were forced to remain inside their homes or leave the Old City altogether out of fear of violence from the crowds.

Contrary to the way these events are often portrayed in mainstream coverage, such displays of racism and hatred are not isolated incidents on the margins of the march — they are central to it. They unfold within a crowd that includes not only youth, but also educators and adults, many of whom respond with indifference or outright encouragement. The march is officially recognized by Israel’s Ministry of Education and supported by the Jerusalem Municipality. The deeper issue is not merely the racist slogans or acts of violence, but the march itself: a public display of domination in the heart of the Muslim Quarter, built on the takeover and paralysis of Palestinian public space and reflective of a much broader political reality.”

Bonus Reads on East Jerusalem

1. “Palestinians forced to demolish own homes to make way for Israeli theme park” (The Guardian, 5/22/26)
2. “Only 7% Approved: Palestinian Building Permits in East Jerusalem Plunge, Freezing Construction” (Haaretz, 5/17/26)
3. “Israel to Build Defense Compound on Site of Demolished UNRWA Headquarters in East Jerusalem” (Haaretz, 5/17/26)
4. LISTEN: “And I too, Love Jerusalem “: Voices from Al Nakba” (This is Palestine podcast, 5/14/2026)
5. “Israel’s trying to expel a whole Palestinian district in East Jerusalem, activists say” (NPR, 5/19/26)

 

STATE BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM

EU Sanctions Violent Settler Entities & Individuals

On May 11th the European Union announced that it plans to place sanctions on several Israeli settlement organizations, including Amana, Nachala and its leader Daniella Weiss, Hashomer Yosh and its former CEO Avichai Suissa, and Regavim and its Director Meir Deutsch. For background on these organizations, see Peace Now’s reporting.

An EU MP told The Guardian that the decision to sanction these entities and individuals is only a “baby step” after years of deadlock on the action. Ireland, a member of the EU, is going even further and is expected to introduce a bill seeking to limit the trade of goods with Israeli settlements.

In response, Israeli Minister Smotrich called for Israel to annex parts of the West Bank. Ben Gvir called the sanctions antisemitic.

Peace Now said in a statement: 

“This is a grave warning sign presented to us by the European Union. The rampant violence of settlers in the West Bank, encouraged and supported by the government, is leading Israel into a moral abyss and casting an indelible stain on the State of Israel. The European Union’s decision is also a call to the Israeli public to open its eyes and see the reality we have created through decades of control and settlement in the occupied territories. It is time to stop the deterioration and begin the long journey toward a political agreement and peace. The first step is stop settlement activity.”

Bonus Reads on Settler Terrorism

1. “The State Is Supplanting Settlers as the Driving Force of West Bank Takeover” (Haaretz, 5/18/26)
2. “’He Attacked a Tied-up Dog’: Israeli Settler Filmed Abusing Palestinian-owned Dog in West Bank” (Haaretz, 5/16/26)
3. “Israeli settlers force Palestinian family to exhume and rebury their father” (Al Jazeera, 5/9/26) and,
4. “In the Palestinian Village Where a Man Was Buried Twice in a Day, Residents Are Still Stunned” (Haaertz, 5/16/26) 
5. “Timeline: How One Palestinian West Bank Community Was Erased” (Haaretz, 5/13/26) 
6. “They Fled to Safety in Palestinian Territory, Then Settlers Attacked Again” (New York Times, 5/16/26)

 

BONUS READS

1. “Israel’s Gradual Annexation of Southern Syria under the Pretext of Mine Removal” (Syrian Network for Human Rights, 5/17/26)
2. “Israeli Right’s Praise of Free Market Capitalism Stops at West Bank Settlements” (Haaretz, 5/18/2026)
3. ”Israel’s Real Police Commander Lives in the West Bank Settlement of Kiryat Arba” (Haaretz, 5/12/26)
4. “Strangle, Expel, Collapse: The Smotrich Doctrine for Bringing Down the Palestinian Authority” (Haaretz, 5/18/26)
5. “The Numbers Behind the ‘Sacred Work’ of Cleansing West Bank Palestinians for Future Jewish Villas” (Haaretz, 5/20/26)
6. “Erased: Israeli Settlers’ Brutal War on Palestinian Communities in the West Bank” (Haaretz)

 

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

May 8, 2026

1. EAST JERUSALEM: More Displacement in Silwan
2. WEST BANK: Demolition Notices Raises Concern E-1 Settlement Construction is Nearing, Plans Advance for 643 New Units, Settlers Plot Return to Ganim Settlement, Spotlight on Agricultural Destruction Wrought by Settlements
3. STATE-BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM
4. BONUS READS

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EAST JERUSALEM

May 17th Eviction Date for Two Families in Batan al-Hawa

Peace Now reports Israel recently delivered an eviction notice affecting 42 members of the Palestinian Rajabi family (7 households), ordering the families to vacate their longtime homes by May 17th. The court ruled in favor of the Ateret Cohanim settler organization’s dubious legal claim to the land on which the homes are built. Ateret Cohanim revived a long-dormant Jewish land trust that owned the land at the end of the 19th century. Ateret Cohanim is using its control over the historic Benvenisti Trust to systematically evict approximately 700 Palestinians in Silwan, replacing them with Jewish Israelis.

Zoheir Rajabi, director of the community center in the neighborhood, told Peace Now:

 “I see myself like a candle that is gradually going out. And it’s hard. You see before your eyes, after 12 years of difficult legal and public struggle, how everything ends. This is the second time we are being removed from our homes. The first time was in 1967 from the Jewish Quarter in the Old City, and now from Silwan. This is the work of the government. It is the one acting to expel us from Jerusalem, and there is no one who can stop it or its racist policy against Palestinians in Jerusalem.”

Peace Now said in a statement:

 “This is a real alarm. If the government does not intervene, and if pressure is not applied to make it intervene, we may see within two weeks more entire families thrown into the street and settlers moving in their place. This is a terrible injustice based on discriminatory laws and the exploitation of the vulnerability and ongoing discrimination against residents of East Jerusalem. The dispossession of Palestinians from their homes in Silwan—homes that there is no dispute were legally purchased by them—through the implementation of a ‘right of return’ for Jews is an indelible stain on the State of Israel. The government can and must stop the forced displacement of an entire community, and the responsibility lies on its shoulders.”

WEST BANK

Israel Delivers Demolition Notices to Palestinian Shops in Plan Connected to E-1 Construction

Peace Now reports Israel has delivered demolition notices to a complex of shops owned by Palestinians near the entrance to the village of Al-Eizariya located just east of Jerusalem next to Ma’ale Adumim. There is concern the demolition of the shops is in preparation for the construction of a new road in the area meant to divert Palestinian traffic away from the E-1 settlement area.

 

Israel Advances Plans for 643 New Settlement Units, Including Units in the Sa-Nur Settlement

On April 29th, the High Planning Council met to approve plans for 643 new settlement units. Full reporting is not available but according to Peace Now the plans include:

• 126 new units in the Sa Nur settlement, which finalizes the statutory planning. Israeli government officials and policymakers joined settlers to celebrate the reestablishment of Sa-Nur weeks ago.
• 176 settlement units in the Mahane Gadi settlement, which will be legalized as a neighborhood of the Masu’a settlement in the northern Jordan Valley. This outpost was built in 2018 on an abandoned Israeli military camp. The outpost has functioned as an educational campus and pre-military academy. 

 

Settler Leaders Planning to Move Settlers Into Ganim Settlement Area

Ynet reports that Yossi Dagan, head of the settler Yesha Council, is very publicly planning to build a new outpost on the site of the Ganim settlement, which was one of four settlements the Israeli government dismantled in 2005 (along with Sa-Nur, Kadim, and Homesh). Dagan said that he has firm plans to move in a “core group of families made up of graduates of the Bnei David pre-military academy in the settlement of Eli” this summer.  

In May 2024, the head of the Israeli Defense Minister Gallant  lifted military orders barring Israeli citizens from entering the areas where the Sa-Nur, Ganim, and Kadim settlements once stood.

 

Palestinian Agriculture is Being Decimated by the Settlement Enterprise

Settlements, outposts and the system of infrastructure that serves them continues to carve up the West Bank, ruin agricultural harvests, and destroy the livelihoods of Palestinian farmers.

Peace Now reports that the IDF Chief signed a seizure order for land west of the Bethelehm so that Israel can build a new settler-only bypass road to the illegal outpost Nahal Heletz. The road will provide settlers a shorter route bypassing the Palestinian village of Battir. Peace Now shares the history behind the Nahal Heletz outpost – is located on the land of Battir, a Palestinian village known for its ancient terraced hills, which are recorded as a UNESCO World Heritage site. 

Peace Now explains the situation:

“the outpost already has an existing road that does not pass between Palestinian homes, but it is unpaved, winding, and long. To shorten the route, settlers from the outpost travel through the village of Battir between the houses. Now the IDF seeks to provide them with a separate road from the Palestinian road that will bypass the homes, under the security pretext, in order to save them the longer journey on the alternative road.”…“The government has lost all shame. After establishing an outpost illegally, without valid plans and on land whose status is disputed, it now dares to use the security pretext to take more Palestinian land in order to create an apartheid road for the settlers of the outpost. This outpost has an alternative route that does not pass between village homes, but it is longer, and therefore the government prefers to seize land from others and harm a heritage site—all just to save a few minutes of travel time for settlers close to its heart.”

Drop Site also reports that Israeli bulldozers destroyed 50 acres of farmland and killed thousands of fruit trees east of Hebron in order to expand Route 60, the major north-south artery through the West Bank. The area is the largest grape-producing region in the West Bank. Farmers tell local news sources they did not receive any advance notice from Israel that their lands were to be cleared.

Peace Now reports the Israeli government’s 2026-2028 budget allocatesl $370,523,582 (1,075,000,000 NIS) for settlement road infrastructure. The current government has already allocated NIS 7 billion for settlement roads.

Peace Now said in a statement: 

“The government is using its final months in office to plunder the public coffers and pour funds into the sector closest to its heart. These are roads that lead to the destruction of the State of Israel. Today, after October 7, it is clear to everyone what the cost is of continuing the conflict, and of continuing to invest all security resources in protecting the settlements. The Netanyahu government is condemning us to many more years of bloodshed while simultaneously impoverishing the State of Israel.”

STATE BACK SETTLER TERROR

Documented attacks over the past week include:

• • Duma: On April 25th settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Duma, injuring many including a small child whose face was injured.
  • Al-Mughayir: A boy was shot and killed at school.

• Jalud: Settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Jalud on April 27th. The settlers assaulted a 14-year old boy and an elderly man, and set fire to at least one house before soldiers urged the settlers to leave the area. Later, one settler was arrested for the attacks. Haaretz reports the IDF escorted the settlers back to the outpost and secured their presence there just one day after the attacks.

• Al-Aroub refugee camp: On May 1st, an IDF reservist and settler living in a nearby outpost opened fire towards Palestinian homes in the Al-Aroub refugee camp – located south of Bethlehem.

Ynet reports that authority has been transferred from the IDF to the Israeli Border Police for policing settler crime in Areas A & B (the Border Police already operate in Area C). 

Additional selected reports and analysis on settler terrorism:

• New OCHA report: “West Bank – The impact of Settler attacks | January 2023 – December 2025” 
• “OCHA Humanitarian Situation Report | 1 May 2026”
• “A Child Born, a Father Dead: IDF’s West Bank Commander Says They’re Killing Like It’s ’67” (Haaretz, 5/2/26)
• “In village battered by settler violence, Palestinian still in coma nearly month after attack” (The Times of Israel, 5/3/2026)
• “With World Distracted by War, Extremist Settlers Intensify Attacks in West Bank” (New York Times, 5/4/26)
• “‘The settlers are winning now’: West Bank activists aiding Palestinians are increasingly targets themselves” (The Forward, 4/27/26)
• “‘The night guards’: Inside the grassroots network fighting back against Israeli settler attacks” (Mondoweiss, 4/27/26)
• “5 Things to Know About Israeli Settler Violence Against Palestinians” (The IMEU, 4/1/2026)

BONUS READS

1. “JNF to Cut Back Most of Its Funding of Programs at West Bank Settler Farm Outposts” (Haaretz, 4/26/2026)
2. “The Palestinian farmers whose livelihoods have been destroyed by Israeli settlers” (Mondoweiss, 4/29/26)
3. “Israel’s war on the West Bank comes for Palestinian greenhouses” (+972 Magazine, 5/7/2026)
4. “Israeli maps outline expanded zone of military control in Gaza” (Reuters, 4/29/26)
5. “Reproductive Injustice and Colonial Violence in the West Bank: Animated” (Visualizing Palestine, April 2026)

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

April 24, 2026

1. EAST JERUSALEM: Yeshiva Approved in Sheikh Jarrah, Land Registration
2. WEST BANK: Settlers Move Into Sa-Nur, U.S. Backs Settlement Frenzy, New OCHA Map
3. GAZA
4. LEBANON
5. STATE-BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM
6. BONUS READS

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EAST JERUSALEM

Israel Approves Yeshiva in Sheikh Jarrah

On April 20th, the Jerusalem District Planning Committee approved a plan to build an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva and dormitory complex (called the Glassman Yeshiva, or “Ohr Somayach”) at the entrance to the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Ir Amim reports, “if implemented, the plan would significantly increase the settler presence in the neighborhood, raise security concerns for Palestinian residents, and further alter the character of the space.

The plan calls for the construction of an 11-story building (3 stories below ground) which will include a religious school and dormitories for students and faculty. There are several settler enclaves in Sheikh Jarrah currently, while Palestinians are facing concerted eviction efforts by settlers and the government. 

The yeshiva is slated to be built on a patch of land that was expropriated from Palestinian owners for “public needs”; in 2007 the land was transferred by the Israeli government to the Ohr Somayach Institutions, an international organization which is promoting the yeshiva plan. Ir Amim reports that in 2023, the Ohr Somayach Institutions received over 6 million NIS from its U.S. branch and its donors.

Ir Amim says:

“…The resumed advancement of this plan should be seen in the larger context of heightened efforts to expand Israeli settlement in the neighborhood and displace its Palestinian residents. This includes ongoing eviction threats against Palestinian families and advancement of new settlement plans under the guise of “urban renewal” for Umm Haroun and the Menachem Begin complex in northern Sheikh Jarrah. Urban renewal plans entail the demolition of existing structures and the construction of new buildings in their place. This mechanism is being exploited by the state and settler groups to circumvent the protections afforded to Palestinian residents under protected tenancy and evict entire families in one fell swoop for the establishment of Jewish settlements.

Together, these measures create an ever-increasing stranglehold on Sheikh Jarrah marked by heightened displacement and dispossession of the local Palestinian community. Instead of remaining a vibrant Palestinian neighborhood, it risks becoming a fragmented enclave punctuated by major Israeli settlements that sever the center of East Jerusalem from the Old City and its northern areas.”

East Jerusalem Land Registration

Jewish Currents published a detailed look at what Israel’s campaign to register land in East Jerusalem looks like, and the role the Jewish National Fund is playing (in concert with the Israeli government) to seize land from Palestinians and give it to Israeli settlers.

The article concludes:

“As SOLT spreads across East Jerusalem and the West Bank, it continues to undermine and endanger what is left of historic Palestine. And while some Palestinians are boycotting the SOLT process, most residents know that registration will go on regardless of whether they participate, and that if they do not make a claim, they will likely be expelled. The Abu Tairs share this knowledge, along with a commitment to stay: Abid is erecting new buildings behind his house for his children’s families and relatives returning from abroad, and he promises “no one is going anywhere.” But they are not optimistic. “We’ll be kicked out, that’s what we expect,” Abid said. But, he added, “we’ll have to be dragged out of our houses to leave. Who’s going to leave? Where would we go?”

WEST BANK

Settlers Move Into Sa-Nur Settlement

On April 19th, several Israeli Ministers attended a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the reestablishment of the Sa-Nur settlement in the northern West Bank. The Israeli government has approved the construction of 126 settlement units, and this week 16 Israeli families, including the family of Yesha Council chairman Yossi Dagan, moved into mobile homes in the settlement. The Sa-Nur settlement – located southwest of the Palestinian city of Jenin –  was dismantled by the Israeli government in 2006 as part of a larger Disengagement Plan signed by the Sharon government.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (who also serves as Minister in the Defense Ministry) said at the event:

“On this moving day, we are honored to make a historic correction to the sinful expulsion from northern Samaria…We are abolishing the disgrace of expulsion, killing the idea of ​​the Palestinian state, and returning to the settlement of Sa-Nur. This is a day of celebration for the settlement movement and a national holiday for the State of Israel.” 

Smotrich Says Settlement Expansion Has Full U.S. Support

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told The Jerusalem Post that the U.S. Trump Administration has given “full coordination and full backing for everything related to construction, regulation, and security in the West Bank.” Smotrich further said that Trump had not yet given U.S. support for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, but that he hoped “we will also succeed in that.”

Peace Now reports that since the beginning of 2025, when Trump came into office, Israel has advanced a total of 27,941 new settlement units – an all time record. The Netanyahu government, since coming into power in 2023, Israel has established 102 new settlements (many of which were outposts), increasing the total number of settlements by 80%.

 

New OCHA Map of West Bank Movement Barriers

OCHA release a new fact sheet and an updated West Bank Access Restrictions Map (PDF | Interactive), showing:

• 925 obstacles across the West Bank (the highest number on OCHA’s 20-year record)
• At least 459 obstacles block or hinder access to main roads
• Over 120 new road gates installed in 2025 (standalone or as part of checkpoints)
• The 712-km-long Barrier (64% built) remains the single largest obstacle
• 3.4 million Palestinians affected

The new map is based on December 2025 fieldwork.

ANNEXATION OF GAZA

Israel is de-facto annexing huge parts of the Gaza Strip via its ever-creeping installation of a new boundary there – called “The Yellow Line.” At the same time, Israeli politicians and settlers continue to call for outright and total annexation, and the establishment of settlements there.

At an event on April 19th, Bezalel Smotrich said:

 “I call on the prime minister to order the IDF to prepare immediately for the full conquest of the Gaza Strip, to establish Israeli control over all the territory of the Strip, and to establish Israeli settlement in it. Without settlement, there will be no security. For a hundred years it has been proven – where the plow passes, the border and security follow. The war must end in an expansion of the State of Israel’s borders.”

On April 22nd, the Nachala settler group organized a 2,000-person march demanding Israel’s annexation of Gaza and construction of Israeli settlements.

ANNEXATION OF LEBANON

In its war on Iran and Lebanon, Israel has invaded southern Lebanon and appears intent to annex large swathes of Lebanese territory south of the Litani River – area which Israel has invaded, bombed, and forced residents to leave.

On April 22nd, a group of Israeli settlers crossed into Lebanon and Syria, calling on the government to annex the areas and establish Israeli civilian settlements there.The group which organized the incursion, called Uri Tzafon (“Awaken Norht”), has previously led illegal crossings into Lebanon, even planting trees in the past. The group said:

“We reiterate our call for true independence and full sovereignty of the State of Israel in southern Lebanon – up to the Litani River and beyond.”

For more on Israel’s history with Lebanon, check out a new FMEP podcast, “The Roots of Israel’s Aggression Against Lebanon” featuring FMEP fellow Peter Beinart in conversation with Bard College Professor Ziad Abu-Rish about the roots of Israel’s aggression against Lebanon.

STATE-BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM

In its April 23rd update, OCHA reports that Israeli settlers have committed at least 680 attacks on Palestinians in over 200 communities — a wild average of six attacks per day. As a result, at least settlers have been directly involved in the killing of 24 Palestinians this year.

Key attacks over the past week include:

• • Al Mughayyir: On April 21st, settlers attacked the village, opening fire towards the a school. Two Palestinians were killed by settler fire, one of which was a 14-year old child at the school. Al-Mughayir is attacked by settlers on a near daily basis.
  • Beith Imrin: On April 21st, settlers attacked and set fire to care and buildings – injuring at least eigh Palestinian in the attack.
  • Deir Dibwan: On 22 April, Israeli settlers shot and killed a Palestinian man during a settler attack on the village of Deir Dibwan, located near Ramallah.
  • Halhul: OCHA reports dozens of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian farmers while they were working on their land near Halhul. The IDF arrived at the scene and declared the area a closed military zone, and detained about 120 Palestinians.

• Qusra: On April 24th, settlers attacked the village of Qusra in the northern West Bank. Settlers threw stones and set fire to property using molotov cocktails.

In addition, settlers built a barb wire fence to prevent children in the Umm al-Khair community of the South Hebron Hills from going to the school in a neighboring community.

BONUS READS

1. “In the West Bank, Israeli settlers who commit crimes enjoy total impunity” (Le Monde, 4/17/2026)
2. “Brief, arbitrary abductions: A new tool of Israeli intimidation in Masafer Yatta” (+972 Magazine, 4/15/2026)

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

April 17, 2026

1. WEST BANK: 34 New Settlements
2. EAST JERUSALEM: Demolitions and Evictions in Silwan, Eviction in Old City, First Jerusalem Outpost
3. STATE-BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM
4. BONUS READS

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WEST BANK

Unprecedented: Israel Approves 34 New Settlements

On March 25th, the Israeli Security Cabinet secretly approved the establishment of 34 new settlements, of which: 20 will be completely new settlements, 9 are illegal outposts that will be retroactively legalized, 2 will be expansions of existing settlements, and 3 are “neighborhoods” of existing settlements that will be split off and recognized independently.

This is the largest number of settlements ever approved at one time. Since Netanyahu came back to power in 2022, his government has approved the establishment of 103 settlements. Before 2022, there were 127 official settlements, meaning that over the past 4 years the Netanyahu government has increased the number of settlements by 80%.

According to media reports (the Cabinet has not published official information), the new settlements are located across the entire West Bank. Notably:

• Six new settlements will be established in isolated areas of the northern West Bank encircling the Palestinian city of Jenin. There is not currently any Israeli presence in at least five of these areas, meaning these settlements will bring with them significant new infrastructure and military presence to serve and protect the settlements. When the Israeli Cabinet met to consider and approve the 34 new settlements, its reported that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir warned the lawmakers that the IDF does not have enough manpower to meet the needs posed by 34 new settlements, and that the IDF could potentially collapse.
• Seven new settlements are slated for the Jordan Valley
• Six new settlements in the South Hebron Hills area, 3 of which are slated for firing zones.
• 8 of the new settlements will be built on land that Israel recognizes as privately owned by Palestinians.
• Only 15 of the settlements are slated to be built on land that Israel has declared “state land,” meaning that eleven settlements will be built on land without clear legal status.
• All of the new settlements are located in Area C.

Peace Now said in a statement: 

“The government has gone into a frenzy ahead of the elections, seeking to create as many facts on the ground as possible and leave Israel with scorched earth. Today it is already clear to everyone—and the IDF emphasizes this again and again—that the establishment of settlements harms security, places an abnormal burden on the IDF, and undermines the possibility of resolving the conflict and achieving any future security and peace.”

Israeli settlement expert Shaul Arieli posted on X:

“…32 of the 34 settlements are planned outside the route of the existing security barrier. This exposes the gap between the security rationale long presented to the public and the reality on the ground. If the barrier was built to ensure security, why insist on expanding settlement activity beyond it? The answer is clear: ideology, not security, lies at the heart of this policy. It should also be emphasized that these locations remain approximate, as no official map has been published and no final coordinates have been determined. This ambiguity is hardly incidental; it enables the advancement of far-reaching policies away from public scrutiny, avoiding real-time criticism.”

EAST JERUSALEM

Ethnic Cleansing of Silwan Continues with Demolitions and Evictions

On March 30th, Israel demolished four Palestinian buildings in the Al-Bustan section of Silwan – displacing 16 people and damaging other houses in the area. During the demolitions, Israeli inspectors said 10 more demolitions will happen in the coming weeks, and another 30 demolitions are planned for later this year. That would conclude the demolition of the entire neighborhood; Israel plans to build a settler-run archaeological park called “King’s Garden” on the ruins of Palestinian homes.

Ir Amim writes:

“These expulsions are part of an unprecedented escalation in forced displacement from Silwan that is tantamount to forcible transfer and involves multiple state institutions and entities working in collusion with settler groups and reinforced by a complicit judiciary. The amount of resources being allocated and deployed to carry out these measures during an ongoing war underscores the Israeli government’s resolve to exploit the circumstances to accelerate forcible transfer and solidify an irreversible apartheid reality. As detailed in a forthcoming Ir Amim report, a web of state and local authorities, statutory bodies, and laws converge into a single coordinated, multi-layered system of state-orchestrated dispossession and displacement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, in flagrant violation of international law.”

In a report on Silwan, B’Tselem writes:

“Silwan lies within what is also known as the Holy Basin, which includes the Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City, Sheikh Jarrah, aTur (Mount of Olives), Wadi alJoz, Ras al‘Amud and Jabal alMukabber. Due to its geographic location, Silwan is rich in archaeological and historical sites, which Israel uses to justify planning and zoning policies that restrict Palestinian development and promote Israeli control in the area. Declaring land as a national park, archaeological site or nature reserve serves, in practice, as a tool for dispossessing Palestinian residents of their land. Moreover, the development of these areas as heritage sites is carried out in close cooperation with far-right civil society organizations, particularly Ateret Cohanim and Elad. This joint effort serves a clear political objective: creating a Jewish strip of territory that severs the contiguity of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and cuts them off from the rest of the West Bank.”

First Jerusalem-Area Outpost

Settlers have erected the first ever outpost within Israel’s expanded municipal borders of Jerusalem, on lands between the bedouin village of Nu’uman and Umm Tuba.

Haaretz reports the settlers behind the new outpost are a group of teenagers, and while the outpost is currently one large tent the settlers have begun clearing roads. These settlers have already established a pattern of violence, and have launched at least one attac on nearby Palestinian villages – after which the IDF arrested four Palestinians and zero settlers. The settlers also attack Palestinians who have approached their outpost hilltop. Their violent presence has already limited the ability of Palestinians to graze their livestock in the area.

Eviction of Elderly Family in the Old City

The Jerusalem Magistrate Court has ruled that 12 elderly members of the Palestinian Basha family must vacate their home in the Old City, where their family has lived since the 1930s, by April 26th. The State of Israel initiated the eviction case in 2018, arguing that the property belongs to a Jewish religious endowment. The state filed the lawsuit in cooperation with the Ateret Cohanim settler organization.

Mufid Basha told Haaretz: “We have nowhere to go. This is where I was born, and so were all my siblings.”

 Peace Now said in a statement: 

“This is an injustice that cries out to heaven. While hundreds of thousands of Israelis live securely in properties that belonged to Palestinians before 1948, the law in East Jerusalem allows Palestinians to be dispossessed of homes that belonged to Jews before 1948. The government has established a mechanism for the dispossession and expulsion of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and the General Custodian, a governmental body, has become a central executive arm of this policy. In addition to dozens of eviction lawsuits filed in recent years against Palestinians, the Custodian has also initiated and advanced plans for new settlements within Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem.”

STATE-BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM

State-backed settler terrorism has continued at an alarming rate of 10 incidents per day since the start of the Israeli-U.S. war on Iran. Key incidents over the past three weeks include:

• Tayasir: On April 9th settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Tayasir,resulting in the murder of one Palestinian, Alaa Khaled Sbaih. This deadly attack is the latest in a string of settler attacks on Tayasir, with settlers injuring Palestinians and setting homes, vehicles, and buildings on fire. Settlers attacked a CNN crew who was documenting their attacks on Tayasir. On April 1st, before the murder of Sbaih, eight families from Tayasir decided to leave their homes and village under the coercive threat of settler violence.
• Deir Jarir: Settles attacked  the Palestinian village of Deir Jarir on April 11th, opening fire on Palestinians who attempted to deter them. One Palestinian, Ali Majed Hamadneh (23), was killed by settler fire as he ran away from the settlers.

Further reading on settler terrorism:

• “Israeli Settler Violence: A Strategy to Displace Palestinians from their Land” (Arab Center DC, 4/10/2026)
• “After uprooting Palestinian hamlets, extremist settlers set sights on purge of entire West Bank” (The Times of Israel, 3/31/2026)
• “A strategy ‘to make life intolerable’: Israeli settlers are driving Christians out of West Bank” (The Guardian, 4/5/2026)
• “Political Pressure on IDF High Command Hampers Enforcement Against Settler Violence, Source Says” (Haaretz, 3/31/2026)
• “It’s Time for Trump to Understand: Israel’s Government Won’t Stop Jewish Terror in the West Bank” (Haaretz Editorial, 3/29/2026)
• “Amir Survived a Settler’s Bullet Once. This Time, They Shot Him Through the Heart – in Front of His Father” (Haaretz, 3/27/2026)
• “Israeli Settler Violence Is So Out of Control Even Western Activists Can’t Stop Them” (Jerusalem Post, 4/16/2026)

 

BONUS READS

1. “After Expelling 120 Families, Israeli Settlers Turn Stream Into Holiday Attraction” (Haaretz, 4/12/2026)
2. “On the Brink: The Forced Displacement Crisis Facing Bedouin Communities in the Naqab” (Adalah, March 2026)
3. “Israeli policies pose an existential threat to Palestinians in the West Bank. Why isn’t there more resistance?” (Mondoweiss, 3/31/2026)
4. “US Sanctions: Criminalizing Palestinian and Global Justice Work” (Al-Shabaka, 3/31/2026)
5. “‘It’s Treason’: He’s a Founder of Israel’s Settlements. He’s Horrified by the Rise of Jewish Terror” (Haaretz, 4/9/2026)
6. “No permit, no work, no future: inside the lives of West Bank workers crushed by Israel’s labor ban” (Mondoweiss, 4/16/2026)

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

March 27, 2026

1. WEST BANK: Five New Outposts, Cabinet Approves Legalization of 30 Outposts, 972 Investigations Shows Area B Strategy Unfolding, 19 Billion for Settlements Since 2023, Weaponization Continues
2. EAST JERUSALEM: 15 Families Dispossessed in Silwan
3. STATE-BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM: Settlers Organze Multi-Day Terror Campaigns
4. BONUS READS

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WEST BANK

Overnight, Settlers Establish Five New Outposts, Killing One Palestinian Who Tried to Stop Them

Haaretz reports that on the night of March 26 settlers established five new outposts, four of which are located in Area A (some ~18% of the West Bank). Later reports suggest the IDF has already demolished all five outposts.

When approximately 40 settlers invaded land in the Palestinian village of Tayasir, settlers fired at Palestinians who came out to stop them from establishing an outpost, killing Mohammad Faraj Al-Malhi, a 27-year-old resident of East Jerusalem. Clashes at the sites of the other outposts resulted in the injury of 14 additional Palestinians. Settlers had attacked Tayasir just one day prior, firing at Palestinians

Kerem Navot founder Dror Etkes told Haaretz:

 “Establishing four outposts in Area A is unprecedented by any measure, and shows the extent to which the State of Israel has lost control not only over settlers in the West Bank, but also over the army, the police and other authorities meant to enforce the law. The establishment of four outposts in a single night is an extreme event with very few precedents in the history of settlements.”

Cabinet Approves “Legalization” of 30 Outposts

The Israeli Security Cabinet reportedly approved the retroactive legalization of 30 outposts across the West Bank. The approval came during the same meeting when IDF Chief of Staff Zamir informed the Cabinet of growing settler violence. There no details on which 30 outposts were affected.

 

972 Investigation: Settlers Systematically Expanding Control Into Areas A & B

In an investigation with The Nation, 972 Magazine chronicles how settlers, having effectuated the de facto annexation of Area C of the West Bank, are now in the process of “methodically breach[ing] the borders of Area B…[where] settler outposts are being strategically used to seize land and drive Palestinian communities out — with the backing of the Israeli army and police. Palestinian communities on the outskirts and margins of Area B towns are being pushed inward, to the centers of these localities. Land on these margins is incrementally taken over through the construction of outposts, the carving of roads, and the declaration of military zones. The effect is a fragmented landscape in which communities are cut off from one another and from agricultural land essential to their livelihoods.”

The investigation, which focuses on the experiences of 12 Palestinians communities, reports the results of settlers’ shifting focus:

“Since October 7, settlers have worked in tandem with the Israeli army to expel at least 76 entire Palestinian communities, while settlers have simultaneously established 152 new outposts. Among these outposts, at least 22 have been established in Area B, including 12 in the “Agreed-Upon Reserve” (a plot of 167,000 dunams in the southern West Bank that is designated as Area B). One outpost has also appeared inside Area A.

According to mapping by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Nation, based on data collected by the Israeli organizations Kerem Navot and Peace Now, the settlers living in these outposts have taken control of around 98,000 dunams (almost 25,000 acres) in Area B and Area A. In total, settlers living in outposts now wield effective control over roughly 1 million dunams (250,000 acres) across the West Bank.” 

Netanyahu Government Has Allocated 19 Million for Settlements

Peace Now reports that since returning to power in late 2022, the Netanyahu government has allocated NIS 19 Billion to the settlement enterprise. Peace Now details the expenditures in depth in their report, which you can read/download here.

 

Continued Escalation of Archaeology as Means of Dispossession

State and settler focus and seizure of archaeological sites continues to expand in scope and intensity. As settlers and the state now routinely make incursions into and exercise authority over Area B of the West Bank, Palestinian communities living near/amongst ancient sites are coming under increasing pressure.

Emek Shaveh documents the following incidents since Israel and the U.S. launched a war on Iran:

• Tel Aroma/Jabel Urma: Located south of Nablus and adjacent to the Palestinian town of Beita (Area B), this antiquity site has become the focus of nearby settlers who have tried to establish an outpost at the site though it was dismantled. Settlers nonetheless continue to raid the site and harass Palestinians.
• Marajam: The IDF carried out a demolition of a house in Marajam, located southwest of Duma in the central West Bank (Area C). The house was located on the periphery of an antiquity site but did not pose any threat to the site – as determined by archaeological experts.
• al-Fasayil: The IDF demolished the village of al-Fasayil on March 17th, a bedouin community in the Jordan Valley. Israel had denied building permits for their homes of 20+ years because they were built within an archaeological site. Most residents of al-Fasayil had already fled their homes and lands under the constant, violent harassment of settlers. The Israeli state has previously conducted excavations at the site.

Israeli archaeologist and Board member of Emek Shaveh writes:

“In a recent Facebook post, Israel’s Heritage Minister, Amichai Eliyahu, uploaded a reel of his visit to the Herodium palace in Jericho, putting up an Israeli flag and declaring: “This is our land. Any place built on the heritage of the Jewish people – we will destroy it.”

By defining all “Judea and Samaria” antiquities as “ours” and extracting and appropriating cultural wealth from the ground, Israel impoverishes the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It reduces the Palestinians themselves to the status of strangers in their own land.

In recent years, this has served as a preface to ethnic cleansing. Less than a week after Eliyahu made his statement about “destroying” anything built on our heritage, Israeli settlers from the illegal Palace Farm outpost demolished 13 Palestinian houses in a nearby suburb of Jericho, claiming that they endangered antiquities.

Archaeological excavations across the West Bank, in places such as Susiya, Otniel, Auja al-Foka, and Fasa’il (to name but a few), have foreshadowed the destruction of dozens of Bedouin hamlets and the expulsion of their inhabitants from the southern Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley. An archaeological park in Jerusalem threatens 100 homes in Silwan….

Archaeology is also wielded as an administrative weapon in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. With as many as 6,000 archaeological sites in the database, legal restrictions on construction and development – as well as claims of damage and looting – are used to demolish Palestinian homes and constrain economic growth (in Israel, sites are routinely examined and, if necessary, removed to allow development)

A common Israeli claim is that Palestinians have “no interest” in antiquities. Beyond perpetuating a racist trope that justified centuries of looting by imperial powers (there are, in fact, hundreds of Palestinian archaeologists), this sentiment fails to recognize that it is Israel’s weaponization of archaeology that has become a threat to Palestinian land and identity. The more we [Israelis] insist that antiquities are ours and only ours, the more we endanger the very sites and artifacts we want to protect.

Only by realizing that the heritage of Israel and Palestine belongs to all who live between the river and the sea will we create the basic conditions for its preservation.”

EAST JERUSALEM

Ethnic Cleansing in Action: 15 Families Dispossessed in Silwan in Favor of Settlers

Over the past week, Israeli forces and settlers forcibly removed 15 Palestinian families from their homes in the Batan al-Hawa section of Silwan, clearing them and their belongings out so that the Ateret Cohanim settler organization can take possession of the buildings and Israeli settlers can move in. There are an additional 15 families under imminent threat of eviction on the basis of the same court decision.

Yosef Basbous, whose family was expelled this week said: 

“Our family was expelled in 1948 and dispersed in refugee camps in the West Bank. I arrived in Silwan with my parents more than 60 years ago. I built this house stone by stone, brick by brick, nail by nail. Today they come to us and expel us again. They claim that the land belonged to a Yemeni waqf and that the custodian sold the land to settlers. The police say they are implementing the court’s decisions, according to the law. But what kind of law is this that can expel me, who has been here for more than 60 years.”

Another expelled resident, Jacob Rajabi told Haaretz:

“They came at 9 A.M., entered the house, took the children and women, and put us out on the street. This is the home where I was born, where I got married, raised children – my whole life is there.”

Peace Now said: 

“Unfortunately, there is no other word to describe this than ethnic cleansing. Settlers, with the help of the government and a discriminatory legal system, are expelling an entire Palestinian community and replacing it with settlers. This is happening in the Jerusalem of 2026 and it is a stain that will not be erased from Israel.”

Ir Amim explains:

“These expulsions are part of an unprecedented escalation in forced displacement from Silwan that is tantamount to forcible transfer and involves multiple state institutions and entities working in collusion with settler groups and reinforced by a complicit judiciary. The amount of resources being allocated and deployed to carry out these measures during an ongoing war underscores the Israeli government’s resolve to exploit the circumstances to accelerate forcible transfer and solidify an irreversible apartheid reality. As detailed in a forthcoming Ir Amim report, a web of state and local authorities, statutory bodies, and laws converge into a single coordinated, multi-layered system of state-orchestrated dispossession and displacement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, in flagrant violation of international law.”

B’Tselem details the history and context of Silwan, and explains:

“In Silwan, as in other Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Palestinian villages across the West Bank, the Israeli regime uses every tool at its disposal to dispossess Palestinians of their land. The goal of removing Palestinians from their homes is pursued out in the open,  the core features of Israel’s apartheid regime, via the court system, and in cooperation with settler organizations, with matching efforts to make Palestinians’ lives unbearable through systematic neglect and violence perpetrated by both official and unofficial actors. This is the reality of systematic, institutionalized violence in which Palestinian residents of Jerusalem live daily under Israel’s apartheid regime, stripped of their most basic rights. Confronting this reality requires urgent and immediate intervention by members of the international community.”

STATE-BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM

The pace of settler attacks is nearly impossible to keep track of. On March 21st (Eid weekend) settlers organized mass riots and attacks on Palestinian communities overnight, resulting in 17 pogroms across the West Bank completely undeterred by the IDF. The attacks were organized in reaction to the death of an 18-year old settler in a car accident, which settlers insisted was a terror attack despite unclear and at times contradictory facts. At the funeral for the settler,  Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for settlers to respond with settlement expansion, saying “We will erase the lines, the definitions, and the letters, and we will settle our land in all its expanses.” The father of the settler called him a “sacrifice“ for the settlements.

Settlers organized a second wave of terror campaigns on March 23rd, injuring at least 10. Five were reportedly arrested.

BONUS READS

1. “How Israel’s strangulation of the West Bank is collapsing the Palestinian educational system” (Mondoweiss, 3/24/2026)
2. “Israel’s Top Court Orders Compensation for Palestinian Family Whose Cattle Were Stolen by IDF Troops” (Haaretz, 3/25/2026)
3. “32 Outposts, 10 Miles of Ground Barrier: IDF Builds New Border Line Inside Gaza. Here’s How It Looks” (Haaretz, 3/26/2025)
4. “Netanyahu Coalition Pushes to Fast-track New Jewish Towns in Arab, Bedouin Areas” (Haaretz, 3/25/2026)
5. “Vance’s office denies report VP raised anti-Palestinian riots with Netanyahu” (Cleveland News Journal)
6. “The Iran War Is About Palestine” (Jewish Currents, 3/24/2026)
7. “Israeli settlers are growing more violent in the West Bank” (The Economist, 3/26/2026)
8. “Settlement of Land Title in the oPt: An International Law-Based Appraisal” (International Humanitarian Law Centre, 3/27/2026)

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

March 20, 2026

1. WEST BANK: New Enclave in Hebron, Officer Invades Area A to Remove Archaeological Artifact, Outpost Demolitions & Hilltop Youth Protest
2. STATE-BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM
3. Further Reading

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WEST BANK

New Settlement Enclave in Hebron

Peace Now reports settlers have entered a second-floor apartment in the Old City of Hebron, establishing a new settlement enclave – called “Ma’ale Doron” – just east of the Cave of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi Mosque compound, right in the heart of a densely populated Palestinian neighborhood. In order to establish and continue protecting the new settlement enclave, the IDF has set up and maintained a constant presence in the neighborhood as settlers are required to pass through crowded streets in the Old City of Hebron to access the apartment.

In September 2025, settlers seized another property – called “Valero House” – on one of the main access roads, Shallala Street, available for Palestinians to reach the Old City of Hebron.

 

Israeli Police Officer Seizes Archaeological Artifact from Area A

On March 18th, an Israeli police officer and IDF troops entered the Palestinian village of Kafr Dhaba and unlawfully seized an archaeological artifact, a stone bearing an engraving of a menorah. Kfar Dhaba is located in Area A of the West Bank, and the IDF, the Civil Administration, and the Israeli police have all denied involvement in the expedition. 

The officer, Meir Rotter, is an amateur archaeologist, and said on a leaked video that his deceased friend had spotted in the village way back in 2017 (though exact details of when, why, and how Israeli officers were in the Palestinian city in 2017 are unclear). Rotter serves as the head of the Israeli Police’s ultra-orthodox community department, with no authority in the West Bank.

Emek Shaveh said on X:

“The officer, Meir Rotter, is not an archaeologist. He doesn’t work for the Civil Administration’s archaeology unit, and has zero authority to enforce anything in an area which is entirely Palestinian control. Yet there he was surrounded by soldiers and boasting about it on video claiming he was “rescuing the find” and took the stone away. Considering the deteriorating situation in the West Bank, you make ask why does this matter? Because for years settlers have led a vicious campaign accusing Palestinians of looting antiquities. And then in broad daylight they do something that feels very much like looting but they call it  “redemption” knowing that they are backed by a system that guarantees total impunity.”

 

IDF Barring Bedouin from Returning to Land

The Times of Israel reports the IDF continues to bar bedouin residents from returning to the lands which they fled earlier this year under escalating settler terrorism. The village of Khallet a-Sidra was forced to flee after an exceedingly violent attack by settlers on January 17th, during which the settlers from the Kol Mevaser outpost burned down most of the homes in the village. At least one of the village residents, XXX, has moved to an encampment near the village of Mukhmas, a town that is also under constant settler violence and threat.

The IDF has repeatedly removed settlers and their makeshift buildings from the Kol Mevaser outpost, but the settlers continue to re-establish a presence on the hilltop in defiance of IDF actions. No settlers have been arrested in connection to the violence against Khallet al-Sidra or Mukhmas.

 

Settlers Attack IDF Soldiers Following Outpost Demolition Near Hebron

Settlers attacked Israeli forces that were building barriers near the area where an outpost was demolished by the IDF the night before, injuring one soldier with a large rock. Settlers also slashed the tires of an IDF vehicle; five were detained on the scene. The barrier is meant to prevent the settlers’ return

 

Hilltop Youth Organize Settler Protest Against Outpost Demolitions

Settlers held a protest on March 17th against what they see as repeated IDF demolitions of new illegal outposts across the West Bank. In recent weeks the IDF has carried out a few notable demolitions against newer outposts that have been hot beds of violent terror, including: Kol Mevaser and Or Nachman, both of which settlers have already re-built.

 

STATE-BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM

Yesh Din documents 170 settler attacks against PAlestinians since the U.S./Israel war on Iran started just 17 days ago — a rate of 10 attacks each day. As a result, six Palesitnians hove been shot and killed by settlers, and five have been shot and killed by IDF.. A small sample of state-backed settler terrorism over the past week include:

• Qusra (March 14): Settlers shot and killed a man, Amir Odeh, in their day-long repeated attacks on the Palestinian village of Qusra, located south of Nablus. Residents of Qusra told Haaretz that settlers from a nearby outpost (in Area B) repeatedly attacked the village on March 14th, throwing stones and attacking homes but retreating to the outpost intermittently. IDF forces arrived at the outpost and spoke to the settlers, but just 30 minutes after the IDF left the outpost, settlers again attacked Qusra, this time firing long range missiles towards the house resulting in the murder of one and injury of two others with gunshots. Three settlers were detained and later released in connection with the murder. 
• In the Jordan Valley, three significant incidents:
  • On March 13th, in Tammun, Israeli forces opened fire on a car carrying the Bani Odeh family, killing four people – the mother, father and two children while wounding two surviving children.
  • On March 12th, Settlers attacked the small bedouin village of Khirbet Humsa in the northern Jordan Valley. Settlers reportedly inflicted many acts of violence on the Palestinians and solidarity activists staying with them, including death and rape threats and severe beatings, one man has reported that the settlers sexually assaulted him in addition to beating him and threatening his life. Settlers stole 350 sheep, loading them into 6 vans, and other valuables. The settlers are known to have retreated to the nearby Beqaot outpost. In just the past few weeks, four communities have been forced to flee Jordan Valley communities under the threat of escalating settler terrorism.
  • On March 8th, an Israeli IDF commander told at least four Palestinian communities in the northern Jordan Valley that they are located on Jewish land and are “better off leaving” because Israel plans to build a new separation wall  on their land. The communities are: Khirbet Samra, Khallet Makhoul, Ein Al-Hilweh, Hammamat Al-Malih, and Al-Farisiya.
• Mukhmas (March 19th): After the IDF demolished the Kol Mevaser outpost, settlers carried out a retaliatory attack on the nearby village of Mukhmas, attempting to set fire to a chicken coop and buildings on the outskirts of the town.
• Khirbet al-Tawil (March 19th): Settlers attacked three Palestinian children while they were grazing livestock. IDF arrived and detained the children’s father and others who arrived to rescue the kids. The armed settlers left on quad bikes.

 

FURTHER READING

1. “How Israel Used the War in Gaza to Accelerate Settlements in the West Bank” (The New Yorker, 3/14/2026)
2. “Israel Deports Jewish American Activist Who Reported West Bank Settler Hitting Palestinian Girl With Car” (Haaretz, 3/15/2026)
3. “Mowed down with firearms: settler terror in West Bank leaves Palestinians ‘humiliated’ after killing 3 men in village” (Mondoweiss, 3/13/2026)
4. “Annexation without a declaration- Israel’s quiet seizure of the West Bank” (MEMO, 3/15/2026)
5. “The Gendered Impact of Forced Displacement on Palestinian Families from Northern WestBank Refugee Camps” (MIFTAH, December 2025)
6. “How Israel Is Using Archaeology to Confiscate Palestinian Land” (Sojourners, 3/17/2026)
7. “As violence escalates in the West Bank, a Catholic woman leads civilian protection” (NCR, 3/18/2026)
8. “Taybeh: West Bank Christian town under renewed settler incursion” (Vatican News, 3/19/2026)

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

March 13, 2026

1. WEST BANK: Mount Ebal, Sha’arei Tikva Expansion, Court Rejects One “Relocation” Plan
2. SETTLER & STATE TERRORISM
3. Further Reading

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WEST BANK

Settlers Take Up Residence in New  Settlement on Mount Ebal

Settlers have moved residential structures (pre-fab homes) into the area of the new settlement on Mount Ebal, on a hilltop overlooking the Palestinian city of Nablus and surrounding villages. Settlers have also reportedly prepared to move to the settlement in the coming weeks. T

The settlement on Mount Ebal was approved by the Israeli government in May of 2025, along with 21 other settlements including Homesh and Sa-Nur. Despite its location in Area B, the Israeli Central Command signed off on a jurisdiction area for the settlement composed of several non-contiguous pockets of “state land.”

Settlers have agitated and organized for a settlement on Mount Ebal for years. Mt.Ebal/el-Burnat is purported to be an antiquity site where the biblical prophet Joshua built an altar, originally identified as such in the 1980s by an Israeli archaeologist though the majority of professional archaeologists do not support that conclusion. Emek Shaveh, an Israeli NGO with expertise in archaeology, called the settler campaign to seize Mt. Ebal as a “watershed in Israeli archaeology.” In July 2023, Emek Shaveh reported that a triad composed of settlers, an American Christian evangelical organization, and the Israeli army collaborated on a recent unlicensed excavation on Mount Ebal, which Emek Shaveh called antiquity theft. Further, the groups transferred some 80 cubic meters of soil from Mount Ebal to the Shavei Shomron settlement, where settlers then promoted an opportunity for members of the public to join the archaeologists in sifting through the materials (thereby promoting tourism to the settlements). Haaretz called the excavation “is mainly used as a tourist attraction to the West Bank and is of little scientific significance.”

 

Civil Admin Advances Plans for Expansion of Sha’arei Tikva Settlement 

The Israeli High Planning Council met on March 11th and advanced planning for 126 new settlement units in the Sha’arei Tikva settlement. 

In 2018, the settler-aligned Arutz Sheva media outlet reported that Sha’arei Tikva was one of a number of settlements (Elkana, Sha’arei Tikva, Etz Efraim, and Oranit) that agreed to a plan to unite multiple settlements in the area into one “super settlement” and build the largest-ever settlement industrial zone. By uniting the settlements, Israel will significantly increase the footprint of developed land, allowing for massive projects like the industrial zone. The four settlements and the land between them are located in the “seam-line” zone, the area created by the weaving route of the Israeli separation barrier that was built to keep many settlements on the Israeli side of the barrier despite being east of the 1967 Green Line.

 

Israeli High Court Rejects State’s Plan for “Relocation” of Palestinian Village, Demands State Planning

The Israeli High Court rejected a plan by the State to relocate – – aka ethnically cleanse — the Palestinian village of Arab al-Ramadin from its land on the Israeli side of the Separation Barrier to a new location on the West Bank side. In a surprising position – the Court actually ordered the State to explain why it has not advanced planning for the Palestinian village, though such plans have been professionally prepared and proposed by the village residents with help from the Israeli NGO Bimkom.

Alon Cohen-Lifshitz of Bimkom told Haaretz:

“the state’s outrageous proposal for the forced transfer of Arab al-Ramadin was met with a wall by the Supreme Court, which is unprecedentedly demanding planning for the village in the place where it has been for many decades…The Israeli government must change its approach of ignoring the human rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and fulfill its duty to enable them to live safe lives with a future.”

IDF Demolishes Two Outpost While More Are Set Up

The IDF reportedly demolished the Shirat Zion outpost this week, located near Nablus.

It’s also reported that settlers established at least two new outposts: 

• A new outpost near Nablus on the lands between the Palestinian villages of al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya, south of Nablus, and Yasuf, east of Salfit. Reports say settlers brough in a movil home and are working to establish a road to the area.
• A new outpost northwest of Jerusalem on the lands of Beit Iksa. Reports say 40 settlers were accompanied by the IDF while they brought in bulldozers and trucks to clear the land.

 

STATE BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM

It’s been another horrific week in the West Bank as settlers and IDF continue to terrorize Palestinians, with at least six Palestinians killed by settlers since Israel and the U.S. launched their war on Iran and at least 109 incidents of settler violence documented by Yesh Din as of March 11th. Key events over the past weeks include:

• Four Killed in Settler Pogrom on Khirbet Abu Falah (March 8th). Masked settlers raided the town at 2:00a, and, when Palestinians emerged from their beds to get the settlers to leave, the settlers shot and killed three. When the IDF arrived on scene, soldiers fired tear gas towards Palestinians, resulting in the death of a fourth man from suffocation. Khirbet Abu Falah is located northwest of Ramallah.
• Uniformed Settler Shoots, Kills One in Masafer Yatta region (March 7th). A settler-soldier serving on a regional defense reserve unit opened fire towards Palestinians in Wadi al-Rakhim who were attempting to herd settler livestock off of their privately owned fields. Two Palestinian brothers were hit, one died on scene and the other was transferred to a hospital in serious condition with a gunshot. Five days after the murder, settlers ransacked the family’s home. Kerem Navot documents the history of the settler, Luria Luski, who fired the kill shots,
• Settlers Set Fire to Homes in Masafer Yatta (March 11). Settlers set several structures on fire in the Khalwa village in the Masafer Yatta region south of Hebron. Palestinians report the settlers had raided the village earlier in the day, bringing flocks of sheep and a camel.
• Settlers raid Khirbet Homsa in the Jordan Valley (March 13), attacking Palestinian residents and activists. Activists report 30-40 settlers arrived in the middle of the night, handcuffed and beat people, and then stole 350 sheep. Settlers reportedly retreated to the nearby Beqaot settlement.
• Settlers ran over a young girl in Umm al-Khair (March 13). The girl was sent to the hospital with a head injury. The settler who allegedly ran her over was filmed leaving the scene.
• In Qusra, settlers filmed brutally assaulting a Palestinian man (March 13).
• Reserve soldiers filmed shooting at Palestinians in the village of Sa’ir (March 13), near Hebron. IDF arrived and allowed the shooters to leave without consequence.

Breaking the Silence writes: 

“On Saturday, settler terrorists targeted Masafer Yatta, killing 28-year-old Amerr Shnaran, a father of two, near Susya. Later that night, between Saturday and Sunday, settler terrorists attacked Khirbet Abu Falah, killing two residents: 24-year-old Thaer Hamayel and 57-year-old Fare’e Hamayel. When the IDF arrived in Khirbet Abu Falah, it fired tear gas at Palestinians, killing 55-year-old Mohammad Marra, who suffocated from the gas. The attacks in Qaryut, Masafer Yatta, and Khirbet Abu Falah follow a disturbingly similar pattern: settler terrorists, often wearing IDF uniforms, enter Palestinian villages with firearms and kill people. Afterwards, instead of stopping the terrorists, the IDF punishes the very people whom they attacked.

Critically, the line between the IDF and the settlers is becoming increasingly blurred, with many attackers wearing IDF uniforms, serving in regional defence units, or using IDF-issued weapons. These attacks are yet another tragic piece of evidence of a coordinated effort by the IDF, the state of Israel, and settler terrorists to drive Palestinians from their land. On Thursday, these coordinated efforts forced the last families of the Bedouin community on the outskirts of Duma, Nablus district. To learn more about the eroding line between violent settlers and the IDF, see the new report by our partners at Yesh Din: “Settlers in Uniform: Violence Against Palestinians by Israelis in Military Uniforms.”

MK Ayman Odeh posted on X:

“Amid Netanyahu’s survival war, gangs of settlers move from village to village, sometimes alongside the army, and kill Palestinians simply because they are Palestinians.”

All of this occurs under the army’s protection and with government encouragement. This is an official, deliberate policy aimed at ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and the realization of the government’s messianic and fascist vision: more occupation, more killings and pogroms, more expulsions, and more annexation. The war with Iran will end, but as long as the occupation continues, the bloodshed will continue.”

Haaretz columnist Amira Hass writes:

“behind every scruffy teen or cowboy with a tzitzit and a gun is a long line of well-dressed lawyers and planners who graduated from the best universities, cabinet ministers and Jewish National Fund clerks, military commanders and heads and inspectors of the Civil Administration. The ones who for years pretended that “security” was the sole reason for declaring firing zones and prohibitions on land cultivation. The ones who, in the name of law enforcement, ordered the destruction of water cisterns and prohibited Palestinian communities from connecting to water and electricity. The ones who drafted and are drafting laws and orders that stipulate, in crude military language or in grandiloquent legalese, that public land will be allocated only to Jews. They are the ones who designed and authorized separation walls and highways so as to devour as much Palestinian farmland and future building lots as possible – on both sides of the Green Line, in the Negev and in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The Jewish holy terror, which reaches new heights every day, only greatly accelerates the bureaucratic violence and dispossession that the state has carried out for decades.”

BONUS READS

1. “The Netanyahu Government Approves Hundreds of Millions for Settlements in Coalition Funds” (Peace Now, 3/11/2026)
2. “Dirty Work by Nathan Thrall” (The New York Review, 3/26/2026 Issue)
3. “In This Palestinian Village, There’s Nowhere to Hide From Iranian Missiles or Settler Pogroms” (Haaretz, 3/7/2026)
4. “Sanctions on Israeli settlements are working – even without the US” (The Guardian, 3/10/2026)
5. “Humanitarian Situation Report | 6 March 2026” (OCHA, 3/6/2026)
6. “A Message to All IDF Soldiers: You May Rampage, Assault and Abuse, and You Will Never Be Punished” (Haaretz, 3/13/2026).

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

March 6, 2026

1. WEST BANK: 2.2% Settler Growth Rate in 2024; IDF Taking Over Palestinian Homes
2. EAST JERUSALEM: E-1 Delay?, Report on EJ Settlement Surge Since Oct 2023
3. SETTLER & STATE TERRORISM: Severity
4. U.S. NEWS

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WEST BANK

Settler Population Grew by 2.2% in 2025

According to data from West Bank Jewish Population Stats (a setter-run enterprise), the settlement population in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) grew by 2.2% in 2025. The rate is twice as high as the rate of Israel’s overall population growth rate, which is likely reflective of an on-average large family size of settler families. Settlers in the West Bank constitute 5.32% of the Jewish Israeli population.

The fastest growing settlements in 2025 are worth noting, all of which were established as illegal outposts and legalized by the Israeli government in February 2023. All are located in high friction areas:

• The Avigail and Asael settlements in the South Hebron Hills. Avigail grew by 720% while Asael grew by 644.8%. 
• Shaharit settlement grew by 600%. 
• Givat HaRoeh settlement grew by 169.4%. 
• Beit Hogla settlement in the Jordan Valley grew by 111.6%. 

The settler growth rate continues to see small declines year on year: the 2024 growth rate which was 2.4%; the 2023 growth rate was 2.9%.

IDF Takeover of Palestinian Homes

There are increasing reports of the IDF entering PAelstinian private residences, evicting families with moments notice, and claiming the home as a new military base. Recent reports document this in Ni’lin, Al-Bireh, and Haris. Two months ago, another instance in Yabad was spotlighted by Amira Hass in Haaretz. Documenting the recent case in Ni’lin, Breaking the Silence writes:

“As one of our testifiers shared, homes are typically vandalised during these takeovers: “You do a Straw Widow, and then you need to do a spray paint of north-south-east-west […] And then someone takes [the spray paint] and writes: ‘Without settlement, there is no victory.’””

Further Readings

1. “Statement by the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory*” (OCHA, 2/28/2026)
2. “Smuggling of Hazardous Israeli Waste into Occupied Palestine: A Deliberate Environmental Crime” (PLO-NAD, 3/1/2026)
3. “Update from Issa Amro – March 2026” (Friends of Hebron, 3/5/2026)
4. “Israel launches Bible study program targeting US evangelicals” (Responsible Statecraft, 2/28/2026)
5. “New academic initiative puts Judea and Samaria at center of global debate” (Ynet, 
6. “In the West Bank, Israel is brazenly defying Trump” (Lior Amihai and Hadar Susskind in The Hill, 3/5/2026)

 

EAST JERUSALEM

E-1 Settlement Bidding May Be Delayed

Terrestrial Jerusalem reports that, due to the Israeli and U.S. war on Iran, it is likely that the bidding window for construction of the E-1 settlement might be delayed – opening a small opportunity for international engagement particularly by Arab states.

Peace Now Report Shows Totality of Post-October 2023 Settlement Surge in East Jerusalem

In a new report (PDF) on settlement activity in East Jerusalem from 2023-2025, Peace Now documents the rapid surge in state-backed settlement expansion and expulsion of Palestinian communities since 2023. The full report includes numerous maps and graphics that capture the detail and the totality of the new East Jerusalem.

The reports key findings are: 

• Advancement of plans for 33,519 new settlement units in East Jerusalem
• Approval of the E1 plan and publication of tenders for its construction, alongside steps to seal off the entire Ma’ale Adumim area (the heart of the West Bank) from Palestinians, including through the construction of a new roads.
• Planning of four new settlements located within or on the edges of Palestinian neighborhoods: Givat HaShaked, Kidmat Zion, the Lower Aqueduct, and Kiryat Menachem Begin in Sheikh Jarrah. (Two additional settlements—Atarot and “Nahlat Shimon”—were advanced in January 2026.)
• Promotion of four new settlements in the outer ring surrounding East Jerusalem: Nahal Heletz, Shdema, Mishmar Yehuda, and Adam West.
• Development of road infrastructure around East Jerusalem at a cost of billions of shekels for the service of the settlements.
• Eviction of 11 families (64 individuals) from six homes in the Batan al-Hawa area of Silwan, followed by the entry of settlers into those properties. Dozens of additional families face imminent eviction.
• Demolition of 37 homes in the al-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan, as part of a process that threatens the destruction of the neighborhood in its entirety, leaving hundreds of residents displaced.
• Advancement of tourism-oriented settlement projects in Jerusalem’s Historic Basin, including land expropriations for the cable car project to the Old City/Silwan; the opening of a new visitors’ center on the outskirts of Jabal Mukaber and the “Omega” project; and the opening of a tunnel connecting Silwan to the Western Wall excavations, running beneath homes in Silwan and under the Old City walls.
• Approximately 100 million shekels annually allocated to security for settlers within Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem.

 

STATE-BACKED SETTLER TERRORISM

It’s been another horrific week of state-back settler terrorism in the West Bank. Yesh Din has documented 50 settler attacks since Israel and the U.S. began their war on Iran. In addition, since the war started Israel imposed severe movement restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank. B’Tselem reports the entry and exit from most villages and cities in the West Bank has been fully or partially blocked, and passage between the various areas of the West Bank has also been blocked – – leaving Palestinians locked in and isolated, and easy pray for settler attacks.

Several very serious events include:

• In Qaryut, settlers – likely IDF reservists – shot and killed two Palestinians and injured many more. Videos captured the armed settlers firing towards Palestinians homes and its aftermath. Residents of Qusra report that settlers arrived with bulldozers to destroy the village’s olive groves and orchards, and then the settlers raided the village firing live ammunition. IDF, arriving on scene, arrested 20 Palestinians who emerged to defend the village from the settlers.
• A bedouin village near Duma made the painful decision to leave their land under escalating settler terrorism and state-facilitation. Recently, the Israeli military issued orders banning activists from entering the bedouin village – where many Israelis had spent months offering protective presence to the village that was under constant attack from nearby settlers. Without activists present in the village, settlers seized the opportunity to expel the village, leading residents to abandon all of their belongings and land in fear for their lives. Once the village was empty – settlers trashed everything there.
• In Qusra, settlers were filmed attacking Palestinians and Israeli human rights activists in the West Bank on Friday. Two Palestinians were hospitalized and two Israeli activists were severely injured and evacuated by Israeli helicopter. Israel has reportedly opened a military police investigation.

Yesh Din, an Israeli organization which closely documents settler violence, writes:

“We remind you that since the attack on Iran began, extreme restrictions have been imposed on Palestinians’ freedom of movement in the occupied territories. It now appears they are expected to wait in their homes until settlers come and attack. Neither missiles from Iran nor from Lebanon will prevent the ethnic cleansing taking place under the auspices of the State of Israel and the IDF. Don’t look away, we must stop this.”

B’Tselem reports: 

“Under the cover of war, Israeli militias, with army backing, continue to harass and attack Palestinian communities across the West Bank in an attempt to expel them from their places of residence. The attacks include: raids on pastoral communities and villages, house searches, theft of sheep and vandalism, as well as assaults with clubs and stones on residents trying to protect their homes or herds, leading to severe injuries and bruises.”

Israeli journalist Roy Sharon captured the state of terror:

“The creeping transfer carried out by Jewish rioters in recent months against Palestinians echoes in right-wing pamphlets and Telegram groups. The method has become very simple: setting fire to buildings in small villages while unleashing physical violence against anyone who tries to resist or document it. Eventually, the residents will realize that no one will protect them from the terror, they will submit and abandon their homes. In the newsletter of the nearby synagogue, they will celebrate yet another victory of “space cleansing,” of course without telling their dear readers that the result was achieved through violence.

In agricultural areas, the method is similar. Outpost activists invade Palestinian grazing lands or orchards every day, and in such a situation, the Palestinian is left with three options: either to give up the land, or to call the police, or to try to expel the invader. The outcome of the first two options is the same—submission to violence and loss of the land. The third option is to enter into a violent confrontation with armed Israelis (Border Guard soldiers or civilians), meaning to end the incident either with an injury or with a bullet to the head, as we saw the day before yesterday in the village of Qaryot.

The shooter, in most cases (in the Qaryot shooting, the fatalities didn’t even throw stones according to the military investigation), will claim that he acted to remove a threat, that he fired because he felt his life was in danger, because a stone kills. This is of course true, but when the victims are Palestinians, no one in the security forces deals with the question of who provoked whom and who invaded whose land—the entire incident is defined by the IDF as a “friction” as if both sides met in a sterile area and started throwing stones at each other. And in the case where the victims are Jews, the stone-thrower immediately becomes “the terrorist,” and therefore either gets shot or arrested within a few hours plus a photo with a blindfold over his eyes.

The responsibility for the anarchy raging in Judea and Samaria lies first and foremost with the IDF’s Central Command (which, according to the law, is also responsible for enforcing law and order and therefore has failed in its role), whose forces are scattered throughout the area and in practice allow masked rioters to unleash violence; with the Samaria District of the police, which has failed in collecting evidence and filing indictments; with the Civil Administration, which does not enforce enough against illegal construction in new outposts; and with the Jewish Division of the Shin Bet, which has been failing for years to thwart terror and has been dragging its feet in recent months with too many investigations.

None of the four organizations has a chance of defeating the disturbing phenomenon on its own. The year with the fewest recorded incidents of Jewish terror was 2016; that happened after the arson attack in Duma where the Dawabsheh family—a couple and their baby—were burned to death. The State of Israel decided to take off the gloves, and all the security forces, together with the Ministry of Justice and with the backing of the Prime Minister (Netanyahu), fought against the perpetrators of the violence.

The motive that has joined the phenomenon of Jewish terror in the past year is transfer. This is no longer a motive of revenge because, unlike the past, there aren’t many attacks; not thwarting a political process (the price tag method was invented to thwart outpost evacuations) and not hastening the End of Days as we saw in the past. The new motivation is the expulsion of Palestinians and the takeover of new areas in Areas B and C, and the method is physical violence, arsons, and shootings—with a blind eye or backing from the security forces. The State of Israel stands idly by, and that’s about it.”

U.S. NEWS

1. 1. “Senators demand investigation after ninth American killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers in West Bank” (The Guardian, 3/5/2026)
   2. “Exclusive: Ro Khanna to introduce sweeping resolution condemning Israeli settlements, settler violence” (Middle East Eye, 2/26/2026)