One of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites is Batir in Palestine. The village is known for its olive groves and vineyards. Natural spring water is used for irrigation there. This is how life has been going on there for centuries.
Surrounded by nature, the village became the latest ‘flashpoint’ of Jewish settlement in the occupied ‘West Bank’.
Israel has approved a new Jewish settlement there. Many private lands have been taken away for these new settlements. Not only that, new Israeli outposts have also been established without approval.
Ghassan Olyan is among those whose privately-owned land has been taken away for this new settlement. He said, ‘They are stealing our land to build their dreams.’
UNESCO said it was concerned about plans by settlers to surround Battir. But that village is not an isolated incident. Such ‘settlement’ is considered illegal under international law. However, Israel disagrees.
“They don’t care about international law, local law, or even God’s law,” Olyan said.
Last week, Israel’s domestic intelligence chief, Ronen Barr, wrote a letter to ministers warning them. In that letter, Ronen Barr noted that Jewish extremists in the West Bank were carrying out “terrorist” acts against the Palestinians and causing “indescribable damage” to the country.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, however, settlements in the occupied West Bank have been growing rapidly.
Extremists in the Israeli government, however, “boast” that the change would prevent the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
It is feared that these extremists want to prolong the war in Gaza to fulfill their ‘goal’.
Yonatan Mizrahi of Peace Now, an Israeli settlement watchdog, said, “Extremist Jews in the West Bank are exacerbating an already tense and volatile situation and making it more difficult to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
According to him, there is a ‘mixture of anger and fear’ in Israeli society after the October 7 attacks. He also said that since the attack, there has been a ‘pace’ in occupying the land and establishing settlements. That is because there is no one to question those who are occupying the land.
A June survey by the Pew Research Center found that 40 percent of Israelis believe the settlements have made their country safer. In 2013, this number was 27 percent.
On the other hand, 35 percent of the people who took part in the June survey again think that Israel’s security has been damaged due to the settlement. In the previous survey, that figure was 42 percent.
Yonatan Mizrahi expressed concern that Jewish extremists in the West Bank have made the situation worse. It also makes ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more difficult than ever.
“I think it’s very dangerous,” he said. This is increasing the hatred between the two sides.
An increase in such incidents had already been seen. But the United Nations has recorded 1,270 such attacks in the last 10 months. In 2022 this number was 856.
At least 18 villages in the West Bank have been forced to flee by Israeli settlers at the same time, according to Israeli human rights organization Betsalem. This Palestinian territory between Israel and Jordan was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War. Since then this part has been in their possession.
According to the United Nations, 589 Palestinians died in the West Bank between October 7 last year and August this year. Of these, at least 570 were killed by Israeli forces and at least 11 by settlers.
According to the United Nations, some of them were reportedly planning attacks, and the list included unarmed civilians.
On the other hand, during the same period, Palestinians killed five settlers and nine members of the Israeli security forces.
Settlers and Israeli troops entered Wadi al-Rahel near Bethlehem this week. A 40-year-old Palestinian was shot dead there. Earlier, stones were thrown at a nearby Israeli vehicle, the Israeli military said.
Last month, a 22-year-old Palestinian was killed when a group of people who entered the village of Jit went on a rampage to seize land. The incident was condemned at the international level.
Israeli security forces have arrested four people in this incident. They described it as a ‘fatal terrorist incident’.
But the human rights organizations think that this step is for ‘impunity’.
According to data from the Israeli civil rights group Yesh Din, between 2005 and 2023 only three percent of settler violence incidents were found guilty after formal investigations.
Ronen Barr’s letter, leaked to Israeli media, noted that ‘little legal action’ had ’emboldened’ the extremist occupiers.
The new settlers are living in the midst of exclusively established Jewish communities in parts of the ‘extremely dangerous’ West Bank.
Many of these settlements have legal support from the Israeli government. Other settlements, known as ‘out posts’ or outposts, were more common in the form of caravans and iron huts.
But these are also illegal in the eyes of Israeli law. But extremists make them with the intention of grabbing more land.
In July, when the UN’s top court found for the first time that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was illegal, it called on the country to halt all settlement activity and withdraw troops as soon as possible.
But Israel’s Western allies have repeatedly called the settlements an obstacle to peace. Israel, however, rejected this order and said, “Jews are not occupiers of their own land in any way.”
It is now feared that the extremists are working to ensure that this move to settle in the West Bank cannot be stopped in any way.
Israel quickly expanded its control over the region, backed by the most far-right government in Israel’s history.
These extremists are strengthening the West Bank annexation plan. Not only that, it is also openly calling for settlements in Gaza after the end of the war.
Many of the new settlers now work in key Israeli government ministries.
On the one hand, world leaders opposed to the settlement in the West Bank are giving renewed encouragement to the two-state solution, calling for positive steps to bring peace.
And on the other hand, Israeli nationalists who believe that the entire land belongs to them (Israel), are trying to make the dream of an independent Palestinian state ‘impossible’.
Analysts believe that this is why some politicians are reluctant to accept the ceasefire agreement.
Tal Snyder, political correspondent for The Times of Israel, said: ‘They don’t want to end the conflict or go to a hostage deal because they believe Israel should continue fighting as long as they can stay inside Gaza. They tend to think long term and think their ideology is more justified. It is, of course, their own logic.’
Israeli authorities have already announced plans for five new settlements. This list includes Battir settlements and an area of at least 23 square kilometers for the state.
This means that Israel considers this land to be their own, whether it is in the occupied Palestinian territories or privately owned by Palestinians, or both.
By altering information on the ground, these occupiers intend to relocate large numbers of Israelis to the land so that their presence can be announced. And in the long run they will officially occupy this territory.
Meanwhile, extremists have also quickly settled in the region outside of state-sanctioned land grabs.
According to a satellite image of al-Qanub, north of Hebron, new caravans and roads appeared within months of the start of the war. The Palestinian community has already been evicted from the area.
We headed to Al-Qanub with Ibrahim Shalalda (50) and his 80-year-old uncle Mohammed. They told us how the settlers destroyed their houses in November last year.
As we approached, an extremist (one of the occupiers in the area) blocked our way with his car.
In no time, armed Israelis arrived there. A few Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers and a man posing as a settlement security officer stopped us for a search.
The settlement guards searched the other two passengers in our car (two Palestinians) from the car. Two hours later, IDF soldiers dispersed the settlers and our (journalists’) vehicle was allowed to pass.
Israel began settling in the West Bank shortly after seizing it from Jordan more than five decades ago. Every government that has come to power since then has allowed ever-increasing settlement expansion there.
Currently there (excluding Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem) an estimated 3 million Palestinians live in more than 130 settlements with 5 million Israeli Jews.
But a well-known far-right government leader who took office in 2022 is promising to double that number.
Far-right leader Bezalel Smotrich believes Jews have a ‘creator-given right’ to those lands. He heads one of two far-right settler groups. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought him to power after the 2022 elections.
Although Smotrich served as finance minister, he also held a position in the defense ministry, which allowed him to make sweeping changes in Israeli policy in the West Bank.
He has invested heavily from the state money in these settlements including new roads and infrastructure. He also created new bureaucracy to speed up settlement construction.
In secretly recorded conversations, he was heard boasting to supporters that he had ‘changed the DNA’ of the system and that his move to annex the West Bank was viable in the ‘international and legal context’.
‘Purpose of my life’
religious nationalists have been on the fringes of Israeli politics for decades. But their ideology gradually became popular. In the 2022 elections, these parties occupied 13 seats in the 120-seat Israeli parliament. These groups became ‘kingmakers’ in Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition.
During the war, Bezalel Smotrich and fellow extremist Itamar Ben-Gavir, now Israel’s minister of national security, repeatedly made socially divisive comments that infuriated their Western allies.
After the Israeli military arrested “reservists” for allegedly sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner, Ben Gavir said the move to arrest “our best heroes” was a “shame” for Israel.
This month, Smotrich said starving Gazans could be ‘justified and moral’.
But the far right in the West Bank and Gaza is seeking permanent change.
Anshel Pfeffer, a veteran Israeli journalist and correspondent for The Economist, said, “This group of Israelis is against any kind of compromise with the Palestinians or Israel’s other Arab neighbors.”
And the war in Gaza has given the far-right new opportunities.
Smotrich called on Palestinian residents to leave, to make way for the Israelis.
Although Netanyahu has ruled out the possibility of reestablishing Jewish settlements in Gaza, his current alignment with far-right parties is notable. They continue to threaten Netanyahu with breaking up the alliance if he signs a “reckless” cease-fire deal to repatriate Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Extremist arguments may be followed by a minority of Israelis. But it is prolonging the war and dramatically changing the landscape of the West Bank – which also stands in the way of peace.