From 2018 to 2025, the number of settlements sponsored by the Israeli government in the occupied West Bank has increased by roughly 272,000. Growth has accelerated since Oct 2023, when Israel began a military bombardment of the Gaza Strip that has killed over 70,000 Palestinians after an attack by Hamas on Southern Israel.
During the Six Day war of 1967, Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordanian troops, tripling the number of territories under its control. 300,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were displaced as a result and continued to be as Israel began establishing settlements in the captured territories.
In earlier days, settlement expansion did not occur at the rapid pace it does now. Previously, appeals to create them could face scrutiny from the Israeli Court, which, in some circumstances, prohibited establishments that did not serve a military purpose. In the decades following the 1970s, however, Israel began to rewrite its legal provisions, making it easier to seize land for settlements at whim.
The increase in state-sponsored settlements comes as “social, cultural, and political shifts” have shaped a government that aligns a national security agenda with its settler population. Emboldened by government support, more right-wing extremists have taken up positions in the Israeli military and cabinet since the 1990s and exercise greater sway over lawmaking. The approach draws a parallel to the Trump administration, which has seen neutral agencies like the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice become political weapons of the president.
On Oct. 10, 2025, the first phase of a ceasefire was brokered between Israel and Hamas following mounting pressure from the U.S. and international community. However, the prospect of the two-state solution envisioned for decades weathers as unsanctioned attacks on Palestinians continue.
In Dec. 2025, Israel annexed additional land to create settlements that straddle the perimeters of state-controlled zones and the remaining lands held by Palestinians. A recent report from the government stated that it had seized about 700 dunams (about 173 acres) of land, as verified by Israeli media. Documents expressed the intention to fragment the West Bank, creating isolated enclaves that would undermine communication and the geographic linkage between Palestinian villages. The plan represents a broader agenda to erode the possibility of Palestinian statehood through forced removals.
More than 1,000 Palestinians were displaced this year in East Jerusalem and Area C, an Israeli-controlled zone in the West Bank, due to unsanctioned settler violence, restrictions on movement and housing demolitions. Destructions to property come both in the form of government-issued demolition orders on houses and obliteration of the neighborhoods home to Palestinians before the war.
The Israeli government argued that these neighborhoods were located along an underground passageway used by Hamas militants. The claim remains unverified.
Israel’s forced displacement of more than 1.9 million Palestinians — during and after the ceasefire’s inception—constitutes a crime against humanity. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention on the obligations of an occupying power, any evacuation order in an occupied territory during wartime must be carried out safely — without the prevention of humanitarian aid — and facilitate the return of all IDPs (internally displaced persons) to their homes.
The ongoing attempts to obstruct humanitarian workers, critical aid and displaced individuals seeking the right of return through the tight control of border crossings have illustrated how mobility itself is being weaponized.
The aggressions amount to a full-scale assault on Palestinians’ livelihoods, dignity and identity. Ajith Sunghay, head of the OHCHR (Officer of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), expressed alarm over the systematic tactics being used to annex large tracts of the West Bank and alter the landscape geopolitically.
“It has done so also by reshaping the West Bank with an extensive network of checkpoints and gates, which ensure freedom of action to settlers while segregating Palestinian towns and villages,” he said.
The accelerating seizure of lands, privately-owned by generations of Palestinian families, is described as a “stranglehold” on the landscape. The color-coded map provided by Al-Jazeera above identifies the spatial spread of Areas A-C throughout the West Bank, each letter denoting a zone under Palestinian, Israeli or joint control.
As visual data shows, Areas A-C, occupied East Jerusalem, and Israeli settlements do not follow linear borders but are clustered around each other, with settler outposts depicted as scattered dots. It makes apparent the fragmentation of the West Bank as lands with different political designations collide with each other, cutting across the lands and farmsteads home to Palestinians for generations.
Meanwhile checkpoints, run by the Israeli military, prolong travel and restrict access to once-frequented sites, like the streams and groves that are centerpieces of Palestinian community.
Farmer Yousef Dar-Al Musa, 67, who was attacked by settlers while trying to visit his olive trees, reflected on how violence has disrupted agriculture, and the long-practiced traditions associated with it.
In an interview, he explained that, while previous seasons were accompanied by festivities as villagers gathered to press their harvested olives, this year there is no produce to sell. Despite this, agricultural families cling to traditional livelihoods.
The resilience of Palestinian communities in spite of cruelties that traverses generations, from the attempted ethnic cleansing of the 1948 Nakba to ruthless dispossessions. Amid the uncertainty of future statehood is an ancestral bond to land.
Said Abu Yousef of its significance: “The earth is our life, from our ancestors, going back 10,000 years.”
