Israel settlers ‘illegally’ arrange document variety of West Bank outposts
Israeli settlers established a record number of illegal outposts in the West Bank last year as violence spirals in the occupied territory.
There are now at least 196 with 29 appearing last year in flagrant violation of UN resolutions and international law, according to an analysis by the BBC.
While settlements require planning permission there is no official data for these more nebulous groups of dwellings which have no boundaries.
But satellite imagery and open-source data including social media posts and local news sources shows a huge proliferation of these clusters of houses and farms.
Internal documents also suggest that organisations with close ties to the Israeli government have provided money and land use to establish them, the BBC World Service reported.
Israeli settlers established a record number of illegal outposts in the West Bank last year as violence spirals in the occupied territory
People check a burnt car a day after an attack by Jewish settlers on the village of Jit near Nablus in the occupied West Bank that left a 23-year-old man dead and others with critical gunshot wounds, on August 16, 2024
There are now at least 196 with 29 appearing last year in flagrant violation of UN resolutions and international law, according to an analysis by the BBC
Palestinians have warned of rising attacks from armed settlers who they say are often backed by the military and forcibly remove them from their homes.
More than 500 people have been killed in the territory since October 7. While the vast majority of deaths were in Israeli counter-terror raids at least 20 have reportedly died at the hands of settlers.
Avi Mizrahi, a former commander of the Israeli army in the West Bank, said the outposts are exacerbating tensions.
‘Whenever you put outposts illegally in the area, it brings tensions with the Palestinians… living in the same area,’ he told the BBC.
Earlier this year, the British government sanctioned eight extremist settlers for inciting or perpetrating violence against Palestinians. At least six had established, or are living on, illegal outposts.
Among them were Moshe Sharvit, who has been accused of threatening Palestinians at gunpoint and ordering them to give up their homes.
Grandmother Ayesha Shtayyeh said he told her to leave the place she had called home for 50 years and pulled a weapon on her.
A group of activists holding banners stage a protest in Makhror area against forced displacement of Palestinians and demolition of their houses by Israeli forces on September 03, 2024
Palestinians have warned of rising attacks from armed settlers who they say are often backed by the military and forcibly remove them from their homes
More than 500 people have been killed in the territory since October 7
‘He’s made our life hell,’ she said, having been forced to move to a town close to Nablus with her son.
Sharvit began a campaign of harassment and intimidation almost as soon as he set up his outpost in late 2021, Ms Shtayyeh says.
When her husband, Nabil, grazed his goats in pastures he had used for decades, Sharvit raced over on a truck filled with settlers who would chase the animals away.
Nabil said: ‘I responded that we’d leave if the government, or police, or judge tells us to. ‘He told me: “I’m the government, and I’m the judge, and I’m the police.”’
Outposts lack any official Israeli planning approval – unlike settlements, which are larger, typically urban, Jewish enclaves built throughout the West Bank, legal under Israeli law.
Both are considered illegal under international law, which forbids moving a civilian population into an occupied territory.
The UN’s top court said Israel must stop all new settlement activity and evacuate settles from the Occupied Palestinian Territory last July.
But Israel rejected the opinion as ‘fundamentally wrong’ and one-side and there is little evidence the government is clamping down on outposts.
