Israel’s Settlement Project in the West Bank: From Territorial Fragmentation to a Settler Governance System

Since taking office in late 2022, Israel’s 37th government has sought to accelerate settlement expansion in the West Bank through new legislation and administrative measures. Israel’s war on Gaza, launched on October 7, 2023, marked a turning point in the colonial project in the West Bank. Settlement construction plans accelerated, new settlements and outposts were established, existing outposts were legalized, and settler forces gained greater influence within Israeli governing institutions, backed by financial and security support. The government also transferred extensive powers over planning, land, and settlement administration to civilian bodies affiliated with the political leadership, while moving toward arming settlers. These changes have strengthened settlers’ ability to turn their presence on the ground into administrative and geographic realities.

Settlers have increasingly relied on pastoral and agricultural settlement in the West Bank’s hill country to seize additional Palestinian land and establish outposts in areas previously untouched by settlements. This has coincided with a surge in attacks on Palestinian villages and neighboring Bedouin communities, alongside restrictions preventing Palestinians from accessing farmland, grazing areas, and water sources. These measures have increasingly extended to preventing Palestinians from harvesting their olives or confiscating and stealing their crops. The convergence of these practices with government and military policies points to the emergence of an expanding settler governance system, one that extends beyond existing settlement boundaries and is closely tied to a broader project of reshaping the West Bank’s geography in line with the vision outlined by Bezalel Smotrich in his 2017 “Decisive Plan.” [Reference 1]

This paper examines the transformations underway in Israel’s settlement project in the West Bank, their implications for the broader geopolitical landscape, and the likely future trajectories of Israeli control over the territory.

I. From Oslo’s Divisions to the Fragmentation of Palestinian Territory

The 1995 Oslo II Agreement established an interim division of the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C. Yet this arrangement remained in place after the interim period expired in 1999, gradually becoming a geographic and administrative framework that constrains connections between Palestinian communities and their capacity to expand.

Area A accounts for approximately 17.6 percent of the West Bank, Area B for 18.2 percent, and Area C for around 60 percent. The latter remains under Israeli civil and security control. Its significance lies not only in its size, but also in its geographic position and the agricultural land, resources, and corridors it contains linking Palestinian towns and villages. Palestinian construction and urban expansion in Area C, meanwhile, remain subject to a highly restrictive Israeli planning and permit regime. [Reference 2]

This fragmentation deepened with the construction of Israel’s separation barrier, which began in 2002, and the isolation of Palestinian lands and introduction of a gate-and-permit system restricting access to them. The planned route of the barrier extends approximately 712 kilometers, 85 percent of which runs inside the West Bank. By April 2026, around 64 percent of the route had been completed. [Reference 3]

Alongside the barrier, Israel has continued expanding the network of bypass roads serving settlements, while intensifying checkpoints, gates, and closures that regulate Palestinian movement between West Bank governorates. By December 2025, the number of movement obstacles had reached 925, an increase of 43 percent over the annual average recorded during the preceding two decades. More than 120 new gates were installed along roads in 2025 alone.

Of these obstacles, 459 disrupt or obstruct access between Palestinian towns and villages and major roads. This includes 121 obstacles affecting access to Route 60, the principal north-south artery connecting the northern and southern West Bank. [Reference 4]

Israeli settlements have further fragmented Palestinian territory, particularly through pastoral and agricultural outposts, which have become a means of extending control over the land between Palestinian communities. Their number rose from 18 in 2023 to 51 in 2024 and 89 in 2025. During the first half of 2026, another 43 outposts were established, bringing the total from 350 at the end of 2025 to 393 by the end of June 2026. [References 5–8]

Other estimates document the establishment of 185 new outposts between 2023 and 2025, approximately 130 of which were pastoral and agricultural outposts or hilltop settlement sites. The effective area controlled by pastoral outposts is estimated at more than one million dunams, equivalent to approximately 18 percent of the West Bank. Around 300,000 dunams came under expanded control in 2025 alone. [Reference 9]

This does not mean that legal ownership of these lands has transferred to settlers. Rather, it reflects the expansion of land used for grazing and settlement activity, accompanied by restrictions on Palestinian access to surrounding lands and pastures. The significance of this pattern lies in the ability of outposts occupying relatively small built-up areas to exert control over much larger surrounding territories. This reduces Palestinian communities’ ability to use their agricultural and pastoral hinterlands and deepens their geographic isolation.

Alongside the physical expansion of settlements and outposts, Israel has pursued other mechanisms of land control through military requisition orders, expropriation procedures, and the declaration of extensive areas as “state land.” In 2024, Israel declared approximately 24,258 dunams as state land. [Reference 10] In 2025, land seizures covered around 5,572 dunams under various classifications, including 94 military requisition orders for security and military purposes affecting approximately 2,609 dunams, alongside expropriation orders and further state-land declarations. [Reference 11]

Although these measures rest on different legal grounds, their effects converge in restricting Palestinians’ use of their land and expanding Israeli control over territories connected to settlements, outposts, and surrounding road networks. Together, they further fragment Palestinian geography.

II. Settlement as a System of Governance

Settler forces in Israel have undergone a transformation in their position and role within the governing structure, moving from exerting political pressure on successive governments to directly participating in decision-making and implementing policies concerning settlement in the West Bank. This transformation rests on three interconnected tracks, whose combined functions provide the political and organizational backing for the settlement project, expand its presence on the ground, and institutionalize it through government bodies. [Reference 12]

The first track operates at the ideological and societal level. It encompasses pro-settlement political parties, local and regional settlement councils, religious and educational institutions, legal and media organizations, and domestic and international funding networks. These actors have strengthened the political and social standing of settler forces within Israel and linked West Bank expansion to their ideological agendas and political and economic interests. They have also built an organizational network capable of mobilizing support and resources and pressing for settlement demands to be incorporated into government programs and coalition agreements. Settlement has thus evolved from an agenda advanced by pressure groups into an integral component of government policy.

The second track is the field-based level, comprising settler youth movements, security and patrol groups, and settlers involved in establishing pastoral and agricultural outposts. These actors expand settlement beyond existing boundaries by establishing new sites on hilltops, agricultural lands, and grazing areas, using them to exercise effective control over territories far larger than their built-up footprint.

This approach has enabled settlers to impose new realities on the ground and pressure authorities to provide services and infrastructure and regularize the legal status of outposts. At the same time, restrictions on Palestinian access to surrounding lands and pastures have deepened geographic fragmentation and intensified pressure on neighboring Palestinian communities.

The third track is the formal and institutional level, which underwent a significant transformation following the formation of Israel’s 37th government in late 2022. Settler forces moved from political influence into the exercise of powers within governing institutions.

Coalition agreements culminated in an arrangement on February 23, 2023, establishing the Settlement Administration within the Ministry of Defense and placing it under the authority of Religious Zionism leader and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Its powers included settlement planning, land administration, regularization of outposts, state-land declarations, and enforcement of planning and construction regulations in Area C. [Reference 13]

This transformation deepened in May 2024, when Hillel Roth was appointed civilian deputy head of the Civil Administration and granted extensive powers relating to settlement administration, without formally ending the existing military framework. [Reference 14]

The changes also affected planning procedures. In June 2023, the requirement for the defense minister’s approval at every stage of the planning process was abolished, [Reference 15] while the Higher Planning Council began holding weekly sessions in November 2024. [Reference 16]

These changes coincided with plans for 40,064 settlement housing units advancing through planning stages between 2023 and 2025, including 27,941 units in 2025 alone. These figures refer to units that progressed through planning procedures, not necessarily to completed construction. [Reference 17]

This trajectory deepened further in February 2026, when the Israeli government allocated approximately NIS 244.1 million over five years to establish a mechanism for settling and registering land ownership rights in Area C under the Ministry of Justice. The decision does not itself transfer ownership of land, but establishes procedures that could redefine its legal status and make it more difficult for Palestinians to prove their rights to it. [Reference 18]

The convergence of these three levels reveals a transformation in the relationship between the state and settlers. Whereas settlers’ initiatives on the ground previously sought to impose realities that would compel governments to recognize them, Israeli institutions are now increasingly responsible for establishing the administrative, financial, and planning conditions necessary to expand settlement activity.

The settlement project no longer relies solely on the expansion of settlements and outposts. It now rests on a political, field-based, and institutional network that collectively reshapes control over land in the West Bank.

III. Settler Violence as a Means of Territorial Control

The transformations in the settlement system have coincided with a rise in attacks on Palestinian villages and Bedouin communities, particularly in areas surrounding pastoral and agricultural outposts. These attacks do more than damage property and crops. They restrict access to grazing areas, water sources, and farmland, threatening the economic and social foundations of survival for some Palestinian communities.

Indicators point to a sharp increase in settler attacks against Palestinians and their property. The number rose from 2,410 incidents in 2023 to 2,971 in 2024 and 5,443 in 2025, including attacks carried out with the participation of occupation forces. [References 19, 20] This escalation continued during the first half of 2026, when 3,488 settler attacks were recorded, resulting in the killing of 17 Palestinians and the full or partial displacement of 26 Bedouin and pastoral communities. [Reference 21]

Settler attacks against Palestinians, 2023–2025

These attacks have also extended to land and the means of agricultural production. In 2025, settlers deliberately set fire to Palestinian property and fields in 434 incidents. A total of 35,273 trees were uprooted, damaged, or poisoned in attacks by settlers and occupation forces, including 26,988 olive trees. Thirteen Bedouin communities comprising 1,090 Palestinians were also displaced. [Reference 22]

Settlers additionally stole Palestinian livestock in 17 incidents during the first five months of 2026. Israeli soldiers were documented protecting settlers during these thefts in eight cases. [Reference 23] These incidents illustrate the overlap between settler activity and the role of military forces, and the resulting erosion of Palestinian pastoral communities’ livelihoods and the growing pressures threatening their continued presence on the land.

Repeated settler attacks, combined with restrictions on access to land and services, have led to the full or partial displacement of residents from 130 Palestinian communities between January 2023 and the end of August 2026. Forty-eight communities were entirely evacuated, while the number of Palestinians displaced in this context exceeded 6,400. [Reference 24]

Settler attacks have also coincided with policies restricting Palestinian farmers in areas classified as Area C. During the 2026 olive harvest, approximately 88,300 dunams of olive-growing land in the West Bank were subject to prior military coordination before their owners could access them, compared with around 68,800 dunams the previous year. [Reference 25]

Field-level violence thus intersects with military and administrative restrictions to transform the conditions governing access to and use of land. This extends the reach of settlement outposts far beyond their built-up boundaries and intensifies pressure on Palestinian communities in their vicinity.

IV. The Settlement Project and the West Bank’s Geopolitical Future

The transformations in Israel’s settlement project are reshaping the geopolitical future of the West Bank. The expansion of settlements and outposts, restrictions on movement, and constraints on land use have deepened Palestinian geographic fragmentation and reduced the land available for urban and economic development.

The consequences extend beyond the possibility of a formal, comprehensive Israeli annexation. They also lie in the continued imposition of administrative and territorial realities that consolidate effective Israeli control over the land and undermine the possibility of establishing a territorially contiguous Palestinian state.

Israel’s parliamentary elections, scheduled for October 27, represent a potential turning point that could affect the pace and mechanisms of settlement expansion, although they will not determine its future outright. [Reference 26]

If pro-settlement parties retain their influence within the next governing coalition, measures to expand settlements, regularize outposts, and register land could accelerate. Conversely, a coalition in which these forces wield less influence could slow some procedures or alter funding and planning priorities. This would not, however, dismantle the existing settlement infrastructure or end the system of control consolidated over recent years. In either scenario, the geographic and administrative transformations already underway will continue to shape the options available to any future Israeli government.

These trajectories pose mounting challenges to the Palestinian Authority and the two-state solution. The Authority may continue administering the population and providing services across disconnected Palestinian territories, while exercising increasingly limited control over land, resources, and crossings. Its predicament is compounded by the financial crisis it faces, with Israeli withholding of Palestinian clearance revenues estimated at approximately $6 billion as of September 2026. [Reference 27]

The future of Palestinian statehood therefore depends not only on the survival of Palestinian Authority institutions or international recognition, but also on whether settlement expansion can be halted, geographic and economic links between Palestinian communities restored, and the material conditions for sovereignty over the land established.

Conclusion

The transformations in the West Bank since late 2022 demonstrate that Israel’s settlement project is no longer confined to expanding settlements and establishing new outposts. It increasingly rests on the convergence of settlers’ initiatives on the ground with Israeli governing institutions and the instruments of planning, financing, security, and administration.

This convergence has expanded effective control over Palestinian land beyond the boundaries of existing settlements and deepened geographic and economic fragmentation between Palestinian communities.

The deeper political consequence is a widening gap between the Palestinian Authority’s continued administration of the population and its declining capacity to govern the land and resources necessary for an independent state.

The future of the West Bank therefore hinges not solely on a formal Israeli annexation or changes in government coalitions, but on the continued consolidation of settlement realities that are reshaping Palestinian geography and determining the material prospects for a territorially contiguous and sovereign Palestinian state.

Sources and References

1. Hamdi Ali Hussein, “The Settler State: The Rise of Settler Power and Transformations in Israel’s Governing Structure,” Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, March 18, 2026. https://bit.ly/4hOkI46
2. Hamdi Ali Hussein, “What Palestinian State on the Remaining Land?”, Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, November 24, 2022. https://bit.ly/4hKsvQs
3. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “Movement and Access in the West Bank: April 2026,” Fact Sheet, April 23, 2026. https://bit.ly/4i7mE6R
4. Ibid.
5. Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Annual Report 2023, Ramallah, 2023, p. 13.
6. Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Annual Report 2024, Ramallah, 2024, p. 9.
7. Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Annual Report 2025, Ramallah, 2025, p. 9.
8. Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, First-Half 2026 Report, Ramallah, 2026, p. 12.
9. Peace Now and Kerem Navot, Annus Mirabilis: Actions by the Israeli Government to Annex the West Bank, 2023–2025, July 2026. https://www.keremnavot.org/annusmirabilis
10. Peace Now, “The Year of Annexation and Expulsion: Summary of Settlement Activity in 2024,” February 2025, published online September 29, 2025. https://bit.ly/3U5upls
11. Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Annual Report 2025, p. 50.
12. Hamdi Ali Hussein, “The Settler State: The Rise of Settler Power,” cited above.
13. Peace Now, “Annexation Under the Radar: The Establishment of the Settlements Administration under Minister Bezalel Smotrich,” July 1, 2023. https://bit.ly/4sabhj4
14. Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), “Abolish the New Regime Structure in the West Bank, Which Constitutes as Annexation,” September 26, 2024. https://bit.ly/47ndUoa
15. Peace Now, “Israeli Government Assigns Sole Responsibility for West Bank Settlement Planning Process to Minister Smotrich,” June 18, 2023. https://bit.ly/4ySdJNF
16. Peace Now, “Settlement Planning Monitor: Updated List of Approved Plans,” March 20, 2025. https://peacenow.org.il/en/settlement-planning-monitor
17. Peace Now and Kerem Navot, Annus Mirabilis, cited above.
18. Peace Now, “Government Approves West Bank Land Settlement, Allocates NIS 244 Million for a Process Entailing the Dispossession of Thousands of Palestinians,” February 15, 2026. https://peacenow.org.il/en/government-decision-land-registration
19. Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Annual Report 2024, pp. 84–85.
20. Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Annual Report 2025, p. 77.
21. Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, First-Half 2026 Report, p. 10.
22. Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Annual Report 2025, p. 10.
23. B’Tselem, “Stealing the Poor Man’s Lamb: As Part of Efforts to Take Over Land in the West Bank, Settlers Steal Sheep and Goat Flocks, Often with Assistance from the Military, Severely Harming Herders’ Livelihoods,” August 17, 2026. https://bit.ly/47WNz0h
24. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “Humanitarian Situation Report: 4 September 2026,” September 4, 2026. https://bit.ly/3UzdVSZ
25. Peace Now, “Military Orders Restrict Access to 90,000 Dunams of West Bank Olive Groves Ahead of Harvest Season,” October 7, 2026. https://peacenow.org.il/en/olive-harvast-restrictions
26. Central Elections Committee for the Knesset, “Elections for the 26th Knesset: Election Day, October 27, 2026,” 2026. https://www.bechirot.gov.il/home/
27. Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO), Report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee: September 2026, September 24, 2026. https://bit.ly/4jZtAFt