Najla M. Shahwan

Israel approved on October 5 a new settlement plan to seize 35 dunams of land from the Palestinian village of Kafr Qaddum, east of Qalqilya in the northern occupied West Bank.

The plan envisions the construction of 58 new settler units at the Mitzpe Yeshai settlement, which is built on the village’s land.

The dramatic expansion of Israeli settlements and escalating violence by radical settlers aimed at evicting Palestinians are among the measures remaking the territory.

Israel has taken a raft of dramatic steps this year to ensure it retains permanent control over much, if not all, of the occupied West Bank, including measures that the government had previously deferred because they were deemed too sensitive.

While much global attention has focused on Israel’s war in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and Israeli settlers on the ground have been remaking reality in the much larger West Bank, which is seen by many Israelis as part of the Jewish people’s historic homeland and by most of the world as the heart of a future Palestinian state.

With several major Western countries recognizing a Palestinian state last month , the Israeli government has been weighing whether to respond by formally annexing part or all of the occupied West Bank, a move that would be viewed widely as a violation of international law.

Within the past year, Israel has approved new Jewish settlements at a record rate, while settlers have established an unprecedented number of informal outposts, often endorsed by the government after the fact.

While Jewish settlements in the West Bank have long been considered illegal by much of the world and, until recent years, as an impediment to peace by the US government, their growth has rapidly accelerated since Netanyahu’s far-right government came to power in 2022 — and especially after the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Last year, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the settler movement’s most influential political strategist, transferred control of civilian affairs in parts of the West Bank from the military to a handpicked civilian director in the Defense Ministry under his oversight.

That overhaul significantly eased the bureaucracy required for Israeli construction projects in the West Bank.

Yisrael Ganz, head of the Yesha Council, a governing body for Israeli settlers in an interview pointed to a list of major projects that have gotten underway: an industrial zone that had been blocked for 30 years; a new solar power facility; and the widening of Route 60, the main artery running through the West Bank.

In May, the government decided to establish 22 new settlements across the West Bank — the largest number approved at one time since the Oslo accords, according to Yonatan Mizrachi of the Israeli peace organization Peace Now.

The 24,000 housing units advanced this year are double the previous annual record, he added.

Even before these actions, about half a million Israelis were estimated to live in nearly 150 West Bank settlements.

Meantime, informal outposts — erected in violation even of Israeli law and which may at first be little more than rudimentary structures or mobile homes — have been proliferating rapidly.

Often, they ultimately secure government approval and grow into formal settlements. With 60 already set up this year, the rate is about eight times the annual average until two years ago, according to Mizrachi.

Moreover, it advanced projects put on hold for decades, including a plan to develop a significant tract of land east of Jerusalem that could thwart Palestinian aspirations for statehood by dividing the West Bank in two.

After a 30-year delay, Israel moved ahead this summer with a project seen widely as a game changer in the West Bank- the development of a 3,000-acre expanse of hilly land known as E1 that will connect Jerusalem to the huge settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to the east.

First proposed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, the plan was put on hold by successive Israeli governments amid international opposition.

The US and other countries feared it would cleave the West Bank in two by isolating major Palestinian population centers from each other and thus prevent the territorial contiguity of any future Palestinian state.

Today, for Netanyahu and his allies, that’s precisely the point.

Absent any objection from the Trump administration, the Israeli government gave final approval to E1 in late August, after a fast-tracked review process.

Under the plan, the government will invest close to $1 billion to build 3,400 new housing units in E1 along with another 4,200 units to expand Ma’ale Adumim eastward, essentially doubling its current population of about 42,000, along with supporting infrastructure.

While European countries condemned the approval of the E1 plan, the Trump administration struck a different note.

“We will not tell Israel what to do. We will not interfere,” said US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, an ardent supporter of Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

To further consolidate Israeli control, the government in May decided to restart land registration processes for the majority of West Bank territory that under the Oslo accords is totally under Israeli control, known as Area C.

Smotrich described this as an initial step toward taking “full responsibility” for the territory.

The policy change has not yet taken effect, but if it does, Israel-based rights group Adalah warned it “may result in the massive confiscation of Palestinian land.”

Besides, it ordered the extended deployment of the Israeli army for the first time into Palestinian refugee camps, which under the 1993 Oslo accords are to be solely under Palestinian control, and displaced tens of thousands of their inhabitants.

Israeli forces invaded the Palestinian refugee camps of Tulkarm, a city in the northern West Bank, the two camps — Tulkarm and Nur Shams — and a third in the northern city of Jenin over the winter, displacing about 40,000 residents.

Over the past two years, settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank have surged rapidly often these assaults aim to expel villagers from their land and expand the Jewish presence.

Attacks have driven 3,000 people from their homes just in Israeli-administered Area C.

On its part, the UN verified 927 settler attacks that resulted in casualties or property damage during the first seven months of this year while

several monitoring groups said there are so many incidents each day that they can’t keep up.

These settler attacks — at times deadly — often occur with the knowledge and even support of Israeli officials and security forces, said rights groups and Palestinian witnesses.

However, in early September, Smotrich announced plans to annex 82% of the occupied West Bank.

Such a move would effectively end the prospect of realizing the two-state solution endorsed by UN resolutions

The announcement comes as Israeli forces and illegal settlers have carried out more than 38,000 attacks across the occupied West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission.

Since the beginning of the Gaza war, Israeli forces have imposed more than 900 permanent and temporary checkpoints across the West Bank, restricting movement across the occupied territory.

According to official Palestinian figures, at least 1,048 Palestinians have been killed, and around 10,300 injured, since October 2023.

All these developments represent the most significant transformation of the West Bank since Israel captured it in the 1967 war and Jewish settlements began to take root in the occupied land soon after.

On his part, Netanyahu has said that Israeli actions are designed to obstruct the Palestinians’ national aspirations and ensure that the territory, which he calls by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria, will remain in Israel’s hands. “A Palestinian state will not be established. This place is ours. We will also take care of our heritage, our country and our security,” he said in mid-September at a signing ceremony for a new settlement project.

Palestinians and rights groups agree that Israel’s expanding presence in the West Bank, coupled with policies to intimidate Palestinian residents and force them to relocate are cementing Israel’s long-term control over the territory and sweeping annexation.