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141-604: The moshav was founded in 1982 by 70 families who were residents of the former Israeli settlement of Netiv HaAsara in the Sinai Peninsula , which was evacuated as a result of the Camp David Accords . The original moshav had been named for ten soldiers that were killed in a helicopter accident south of Rafah in 1971, and was originally named " Minyan ". After the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005, Netiv HaAsara became

282-514: A bar association . Palestinians were denied direct political representation after 1976, and instead, village leagues ( rawabit al-qura ) were introduced, and furnished by Israel with arms and militias. These leagues had a short life: their appointees were considered to be quislings by General Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and collaborationists by the local population, and to have been recruited from people who were lazy or had criminal backgrounds. With

423-481: A local council status with populations of 2,000–20,0000, such as Alfei Menashe , Eli , Elkana , Efrat and Kiryat Arba . There are also clusters of villages governed by a local elected committee and regional councils that are responsible for municipal services. Examples are Kfar Adumim , Neve Daniel , Kfar Tapuach and Ateret . Kibbutzim and moshavim in the territories include Argaman , Gilgal , Na'aran and Yitav . Jewish neighborhoods have been built on

564-527: A "Greater Israel theology" that year, which led to an incremental expansion of this projects, and marked in the view of Oren Yiftachel the peak of Israel's ethnocratic project , with the West Bank to become "the bedrock of Jewish national identity". A change in territorial focus took place, with settlements now promoted in the biblical heartland of the West Bank next to Palestinian population centres. The main plank of Likud's platform, still unaltered, called for

705-508: A 5-year tax exemption, not applied to Palestinian Jerusalemites, who were placed in a high income tax bracket, and paid for 26% of municipal services while receiving 5% of the benefits. The Palestinian areas were encircled by Jewish new town developments which effectively closed them off from expansion, and services to the latter were kept low so that after decades, basic infrastructure was left in neglect, with shortages of schools, inadequate sewage and garbage disposal. By 2017, 370,000 lived in

846-683: A Thai worker was killed. On 25 August 2007, Palestinian militants from the Popular Resistance Committees and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine attempted to enter Netiv HaAsara from Gaza. The militants used a ladder to scale the Israel-Gaza border , and two militants were killed by the Israel Defense Forces . In the 7 October 2023 Netiv HaAsara massacre as part of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel , at least 20 of

987-430: A basis for PLO aggression. The fourth position, associated with Abba Eban , Pinhas Sapir and Yehoshafat Harkabi is reconciliationist , being opposed to the idea of "Fortress Israel". Its proponents do not generally consider retention of the West Bank indispensable for guaranteeing Israel's security interests, with Harkabi, a former head of military intelligence, advocating withdrawal to the 1967 borders in exchange for

1128-565: A classic example of an " intractable conflict ", Israel's occupation is now the longest in modern history . Though its occupation is illegal , Israel has cited several reasons for retaining the West Bank within its ambit: historic rights stemming from the Balfour Declaration ; security grounds, both internal and external; and the area's symbolic value for Jews. Israel has controversially, and in contravention of international law , established numerous Jewish settlements throughout

1269-457: A dramatic fall in Palestinian terror attacks. In 2009, 200 settler attacks took place, a figure which doubled to over 400 by 2011. Of the latter, nearly 300 consisted in attacks on Palestinian property, causing 100 Palestinian casualties, and the destruction of roughly 10,000 trees. Many of these are carried out as Price tag acts , which target innocent Palestinians and are designed to intimidate

1410-581: A further six probably died through settler actions, and eight were killed in response to stone throwing at cars. Only two died as a result of clashes. In the 1980s attempts by one Jewish terrorist group led by Meir Kahane to set up settlements were blocked by other settlers, the heads of Gush Emunim , though Kahane's views would later motivate the Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre . From 2009 such settler violence escalated rapidly, an uptick that coincided with

1551-512: A high priority, The enrollment rate averaged an annual increase of 7% over the prior decade, and by 1966, Palestinian youth had the highest enrollment rate of all Arab countries. Palestinians in the West Bank had a favourable educational basis compared to Israeli Arabs and Jordanian youth, due to the preexisting provisions of the Jordanian school system which provided 12 years of free and compulsory education, with some 44.6% of West Bank teenagers in

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1692-634: A labour scarcity in the West Bank, and their remittances were the major factor in Palestinian economic growth during the 1969–73 boom years. The Israeli licensing system stipulated no industrial plant could be built without obtaining a prior Israeli permit, which was often tied to security concerns. Entrepreneurs were denied a permit for a cement factory in Hebron, melon production was forbidden, imports of grapes and dates banned, to protect Israeli farmers, and limits were set to how many cucumbers and tomatoes could be produced. Israeli milk producers exerted pressure on

1833-537: A military order stopped attempts by Palestinians to register their land, while permitting Israel to register areas as state land with its own Custodian of Enemy Property . Whereas Ottoman and British Mandatory Authorities had used property-tax books to collect taxes from villages, Israel ignored these as evidence of ownership, demanding instead that proof be given the land was under cultivation, while army seizures often prevented villagers from continuing to work their fields. From 1967 to 1983, Israel expropriated over 52% of

1974-666: A negotiated settlement with the PLO. The West Bank was considered a bargaining chip in securing a broad peace treaty with Arab nations. In time, especially after the Sinai withdrawal , and suggestions the Golan Heights were also negotiable, the idea of retaining territory for strategic interests dwindled in importance, as a military anachronism in an age of missile warfare. The military arguments for retaining ground were supplanted by political considerations, that Arab acquiescence in agreed on borders

2115-666: A number of settlements designed to form a bulwark against the threat of future mass tank assaults from Jordan and Iraq. The third approach, associated with Menachem Begin and the Likud party , is annexationist , and with the ascendency of Likud, the biblical resonance of West Bank territory outweighed questions of security significance in driving an expansion of settlements, though both Likud and Gush Emunim came to oppose Palestinian independence on security grounds and treated West Bank Palestinians as either potential enemies or security threats, by arguing that national autonomy would develop into

2256-407: A political disaster for the political parties involved. West Bank Palestinians have engaged in two uprisings that have led to an asymmetric set of wars of attrition , between the occupying power and the occupied people. This characterization has been further refined by classifying the conflict as structurally asymmetric, where the root cause of tension lies in the standoff between a colonizer and

2397-527: A prison sentence of seven and a half years for killing a child, and the rest were given light sentences. Writing in 2012, Daniel Byman and Natan Sachs judged that the pattern of settler violence was "undoubtedly working" and achieving its ends, by influencing the way Palestinians view Israelis, strengthening the hand of terrorists among them, and by seeding fears in the Israeli government that any pullout in exchange for peace would lead to conflict with settlers and

2538-457: A prospective homeland, thus truncated, suicidally small. It was in this context that Ben-Gurion argued forcefully for accepting partition agreements as temporary measures, steps on the way to an incremental incorporation of all of Palestine into a Jewish state. According to Israeli historian Adam Raz, as early as 1961, the IDF had drawn up meticulous plans for the conquest and retention of not only

2679-461: A provisory division of the land, excluding East Jerusalem, into 3 areas: Area A (18% of territory, 55% of population), Area B (20% of territory, 41% of the population), and Area C (62% of territory, 5.8% of population). Israel never finalized the undertaking with regard to Area C to transfer zoning and planning from the Israeli to the Palestinian authorities within five years and all administrative functions continued to remain in its hands. Tactically,

2820-402: A result of " enclave law ", large portions of Israeli civil law are applied to Israeli settlements and Israeli residents in the occupied territories. On 31 August 2014, Israel announced it was appropriating 400 hectares of land in the West Bank to eventually house 1,000 Israel families. The appropriation was described as the largest in more than 30 years. According to reports on Israel Radio,

2961-494: A security threat, including terrorism. A concern for security in Israel has been said to "vastly exceed the norm for other Western countries". Israel's military-industrial sector , which by the early 1980s employed a quarter of all industrial workers with 28% of GNP devoted to defense expenditures, became the fastest growing sector of the economy after 1967. It came to extend its activities beyond issues of defense, spilling over into

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3102-522: A sense among the Palestinians of living in a ghetto. Between 1967 and 1977, settlement was small-scale totaling the transfer of 3,200 Israelis into the West Bank. By the end of Labor's term of power in 1977, 4,500 Israelis had established themselves in 30 West Bank settlements and some 50,000 in settlements in East Jerusalem. It was with the rise to power of Menachem Begin 's Likud Party , driven by

3243-525: A swift campaign took possession of East Jerusalem and, after news that King Hussein had ordered his forces to withdraw across the Jordan, took the entire West Bank by noon on 8 June. Israel expelled many people from areas it had conquered, beginning with an estimated 12,000 people who on the very first day were rounded up in the villages of Imwas , Yalo and Bayt Nuba in the Latrun Salient and ordered by

3384-504: A transitional period not exceeding five years of Palestinian interim self-government in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Major critics of these arrangements, headed by Raja Shehadeh , argue that the PLO had scarce interest or competence in the legal implications of what it was signing. These Oslo Accords ceded nominal control of a small amount of the West Bank to a Palestinian authority , with

3525-657: A voluntary movement by Israeli Jewish people. The International Court of Justice also determined that Israeli settlements in the West Bank were established in breach of international law in their 2004 advisory opinion on the West Bank barrier . In 1980, Israel declined to sign the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties which obliges national laws to give way to international law when the two conflict, and regulates settlements in terms of its own laws, in lieu of any compulsion to observe its treaty commitments and by arguing that all

3666-524: A word which, since 1967, has been replaced by the euphemism "settlement". The technique developed over the decades of early settlement was one of incremental spread, setting up tower-and-stockade outposts, a pattern repeated in the West Bank after 1967. A quote attributed to Joseph Trumpeldor summed up Zionist logic: "Wherever the Jewish plow plows its last furrow, that is where the border will run". The principle of this slow steady establishing of "facts on

3807-694: Is "pipelined" into the settlements , such that Israeli citizens living there are treated similarly to those living in Israel. Many consider it to be a major obstacle to the Israeli–Palestinian peace process . In Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (2004), the ICJ found that Israel's settlements and the then-nascent Israeli West Bank barrier were both in violation of international law; part of

3948-480: Is also hosting at least 196 Israeli outposts , which are settlements that have not been authorized by the Israeli government. In total, over 450,000 Israeli settlers reside in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, with an additional 220,000 Israeli settlers residing in East Jerusalem. Additionally, over 25,000 Israeli settlers live in Syria's Golan Heights. Between 1967 and 1982, there were 18 settlements established in

4089-527: Is formally under PA administration, meaning they still effectively control all the West Bank including areas under nominal PA authority. According to the United Nations special rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Michael Lynk , the policies applied by Israel indicate an intention to annex totally Area C, which has 86% of the nature reserves , 91% of the forests, 48% of

4230-409: Is of greater importance, and that settlements, formerly placed along possible invasion routes, were no longer functional for security, if they were an obstacle to peace. The Oslo Accords , moreover, had set in place a Palestinian security apparatus that, as Yitzhak Rabin acknowledged, worked with Israel to safeguard Israel's security interests. According to analysts who support Israeli settlements,

4371-464: Is restored to its rightful owners are few and far between. If a claim is made, but the Custodian has sold it to a settler group in the meantime, the sale cannot be nullified even if invalid. Fourthly, land expropriated for public need under Jordanian law required notification, time for appeal, and royal approval. Israel modified this by delegating the power to regional military commanders, and by abolishing

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4512-518: Is three times the Israeli national average. Most of the spending goes to the security of the Israeli citizens living there. As of January 2023, there are 144 Israeli settlements in the West Bank , including 12 in East Jerusalem . In addition, there are at least 196 Israeli illegal outposts (not sanctioned by the Israeli government) in the West Bank. In total, over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in

4653-539: The 1948 war . The number who left the West Bank as a consequence of the war ranges from 100,000 to 400,000, of which from 50,000 to 200,000 lived in the Jordan Valley. During the 1967 June War Israel appointed a Military Governor to rule the West Bank, with a remit to retain Jordanian law except where these conflicted with Israel's rights as belligerent occupying power . The Israeli administration of Palestinian territories became in time "the longest – and, accordingly,

4794-666: The Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula of Egypt , though these were dismantled by Israel after the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979. Additionally, as part of the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel dismantled all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the West Bank. Per the Fourth Geneva Convention , the transfer by an occupying power of its civilian population into

4935-725: The Jerusalem District . Pre-1967 residents of East Jerusalem and their descendants have residency status in the city but many have refused Israeli citizenship. Thus, the Israeli government maintains an administrative distinction between Israeli citizens and non-citizens in East Jerusalem, but the Jerusalem municipality does not. Israeli occupation of the West Bank#Settlement The West Bank , including East Jerusalem , has been under military occupation by Israel since 7 June 1967, when Israeli forces captured

5076-532: The Jewish Underground movement of the early 1980s, which began by targeting and severely maiming, through the deployment of car bombs , West Bank mayors such as Bassam Shakaa of Nablus , and Karim Khalaf of Ramallah . In the first two years of the First Intifada , settlers killed at least 34 Palestinians, four below the age of 16, with 11 killed by settler initiative at home or while guarding flocks;

5217-496: The Jordan River , and excluded areas closer to the pre-1967 border, which had a high density of Palestinians. The functionalist view, associated with Moshe Dayan and later Simon Peres , foresaw setting up five army bases along the Jordan ridges, which also left the Palestinians in between with a degree of autonomy, though constrained to accept the presence of Israelis among them. From 1968 to 1977 Labor governments facilitated

5358-584: The Knesset ; in contrast, Palestinian civilians, mostly confined to scattered enclaves , are subject to martial law and are not permitted to vote in Israel's national elections. This two-tiered system has caused Israel to be accused of committing apartheid , a charge that Israel rejects entirely. Israel's vast military superiority, with a modern army and air force, compared to the Palestinian use of guerrilla tactics, has led to accusations of war crimes on both sides, with Israel being accused of disproportionality and

5499-694: The Labor government of Levi Eshkol . The basis for Israeli settlement in the West Bank became the Allon Plan , named after its inventor Yigal Allon . It implied Israeli annexation of major parts of the Israeli-occupied territories , especially East Jerusalem , Gush Etzion and the Jordan Valley . The settlement policy of the government of Yitzhak Rabin was also derived from the Allon Plan. The first settlement

5640-593: The Oslo Accords , Israel negotiated with the Palestinian Liberation Organization a provisory agreement which left the latter some autonomy in Area A, mixed regulation of Area B, and total Israeli administration of the largest zone, Area C. Israel retains a right to operate militarily in all three zones, but security issues have a bilateral dimension that had led a number of critics to argue that effectively

5781-567: The Six-Day War in 1967. The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law , but Israel disputes this. In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel's occupation was illegal and ruled that Israel had "an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers" from the occupied territories. The expansion of settlements often involves

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5922-863: The West Bank (including East Jerusalem ), which is claimed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sovereign territory of the State of Palestine , and in the Golan Heights , which is internationally recognized as a part of the sovereign territory of Syria . Through the Jerusalem Law and the Golan Heights Law , Israel effectively annexed both territories, though the international community has rejected any change to their status as occupied territory . Although Israel's West Bank settlements have been built on territory administered under military rule rather than civil law, Israeli civil law

6063-514: The West Bank , an area administered by Jordan , that tacit accord was broken. After Israel attacked Egypt at 8 a.m. on 5 June 1967, Jordan responded by shelling Israeli targets in West Jerusalem , and settlements along the border and then, after ignoring an Israeli warning, by attacking Israeli airfields in Ramat David and Kfar Syrkin , but also Netanya . In response, the Israeli army in

6204-435: The diaspora in moving into West Bank settlements, with 12% stating their first choice of residency is "Judea and Samaria". They now form the predominant block and number an estimated 60,000. Before proceeding with settlement, the government sought legal advice from their resident expert on international law, Theodor Meron . His top secret memorandum stated unequivocally that the prohibition on any such population transfer

6345-584: The first Trump administration reversed this long-standing policy in November 2019, declaring that "the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law"; this new policy, in turn, was reversed to the original by the Biden administration in February 2024, once again classifying Israeli settlement expansion as "inconsistent with international law" and matching

6486-482: The 15–17 age group participating in some form of secondary schooling. In 1956, the Israeli leader David Ben-Gurion stated that: "Jordan has no right to exist. [...] The territory to the West of the Jordan should be made an autonomous region of Israel". There had been a very strong opposition to any "Balkanization" or division of Palestine, especially among American Zionists, in the mid-late thirties, since it would have made

6627-445: The 1990s, the annual settler population growth was more than three times the annual population growth in Israel. Population growth has continued in the 2000s. According to the BBC, the settlements in the West Bank have been growing at a rate of 5–6% since 2001. In 2016, there were sixty thousand American Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank. The establishment of settlements in

6768-467: The 60% of the West Bank that was not under Palestinian administrative control and the population growth of settlers did not diminish. In 2005, all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank were forcibly evacuated as part of Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip , known to some in Israel as "the Expulsion". Nevertheless, the total settler population continued to rise. After

6909-526: The Accord lessened Israel's problem with large-scale demonstrations since the areas of ostensible PA control were fragmented into 165 islands containing 90% of the Palestinian population, all surrounded by the spatially contiguous 60% of the West Bank where the PA was forbidden to venture. Israel then reasserted in 2000 a right to enter, according to "operational needs", Area A where most West Bank Palestinians live and which

7050-521: The Civil Administration over the years covertly allotted 10% of the West Bank for further settlement. Provisional names for future new settlements or settlement expansions were already assigned. The plan includes many Palestinian built-up sites in the Areas A and B . Land in the Gaza Strip available to its Palestinian inhabitants has historically been limited as a result of Israeli land confiscation and

7191-587: The Development of Settlements in Judea and Samaria, 1979–1983", was written by the Jewish Agency director and former Knesset member Matityahu Drobles . In January 1981, the government adopted a follow-up plan from Drobles, dated September 1980 and named "The current state of the settlements in Judea and Samaria", with more details about settlement strategy and policy. Since 1967, government-funded settlement projects in

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7332-556: The Gaza Strip and the West Bank" . It wanted to keep settlements beyond the Green Line including Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev in East Jerusalem. Blocs of settlements should be established in the West Bank. Rabin promised not to return to the 4 June 1967 lines. In June 1997, the Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu presented its "Allon Plus Plan". This plan holds the retention of some 60% of

7473-662: The Gazan economy via land confiscation, the disproportionate consumption of local resources such as water, by overwhelmingly denying work opportunities and through the large disparities in funding (both private and governmental) for economic development. Some settlements are self-contained cities with a stable population in the tens of thousands, infrastructure, and all other features of permanence. Examples are Beitar Illit (a city of close to 45,000 residents), Ma'ale Adumim , Modi'in Illit , and Ariel (almost 20,000 residents). Some are towns with

7614-740: The Golan Heights had risen to 25,261. In 2020, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem had reportedly risen to 451,700 individuals, with an additional 220,000 Jews living in East Jerusalem. Based on various sources, population dispersal can be estimated as follows: -4,400 In addition to internal migration, in large though declining numbers, the settlements absorb annually about 1000 new immigrants from outside Israel. The American Kulanu organization works with such right-wing Israeli settler groups as Amishav and Shavei Israel to settle "lost" Jews of color in such areas where local Palestinians are being displaced. In

7755-526: The IDF. From the mid-1990s to 2015 many of these, such as Amona , Avri Ran 's Giv'ot Olam and Ma'ale Rehav'am – the latter on 50 dunams of private Palestinian land – were directly funded, according to Haaretz , by loans from the World Zionist Organization through Israeli taxpayer money, since its approximate $ 140 million income derives from Israel and is mostly invested in settlements in

7896-588: The Israeli Civil Administration, military order 947, specified that "the Civil Administration shall administer civilian affairs ... with regard to the welfare and benefit of the population." Meron Benvenisti argues that this transition marked the transformation of the occupation from a temporary into a permanent system. The military closely supervised elections in local clubs, cooperatives or charitable organizations. West Bank lawyers were banned on security grounds from organizing professionally

8037-547: The Israeli Interior Ministry gave figures of 389,250 Israeli citizens living in the West Bank outside East Jerusalem. By the end of 2016, the West Bank Jewish population had risen to 420,899, excluding East Jerusalem, where there were more than 200,000 Jews. In 2019, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem had risen to 441,600 individuals, and the number of Israeli settlers in

8178-409: The Israeli cabinet did not regard the West Bank as having a "vital security value". Before the war ended, the IDF 's research department under Shlomo Gazit drew up a proposal to pull back from the West Bank and Gaza almost completely in exchange for a peace treaty, since, they concluded, there was no need for retaining any territory on security grounds. The document was ignored. It was in the wake of

8319-465: The Israeli government for the establishment of settlements. By 1991, the settler population in Gaza would reach 3,500 and 4,000 by 1993, or less than 1% of Gaza's population. The land available for use by the Jewish settler community exceeded 25% of the total land in Gaza. The ratio of dunams to people was 23 for Jewish settlers, and 0.27 for Palestinians. Comparing the available built-up area available to each of

8460-551: The Israeli military into exile eastwards. All three villages were then destroyed, and within two years the area was planned as a recreational area now called Canada Park . Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled to Jordan from the refugee camps of Aqabat Jaber and Ein as-Sultan after Israel bombed the camps. The overall numbers of Palestinians displaced by that war is generally estimated to have been around 280,000–325,000, of which it has been calculated that some 120–170,000 were two-time refugees, having been displaced earlier during

8601-422: The Israeli policy of establishing " facts on the ground ". Political economist Sara Roy described this as a policy intended to make the establishment of an independent Palestinian state more difficult. The locations and size of these new settlements would contribute to geographically isolating Palestinian communities from each other. In the seven years between 1978 and 1985, 11,500 acres of land were confiscated by

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8742-700: The Israeli settlements cover only 1 percent of the West Bank, but their jurisdiction and their regional councils extend to about 42 percent of the West Bank, according to the Israeli NGO B'Tselem . Yesha Council chairman Dani Dayan disputes the figures and claims that the settlements only control 9.2 percent of the West Bank. Between 2001 and 2007 more than 10,000 Israeli settlement units were built, while 91 permits were issued for Palestinian construction, and 1,663 Palestinian structures were demolished in Area C. West Bank Palestinians have their cases tried in Israel's military courts while Jewish Israeli settlers living in

8883-577: The Jordan Valley, which, together with the northern Dead Sea, covers 30% of the West Bank and constituted the "most significant land reserve" for Palestinians, 85% of whom are barred from entering it. By 2011, 37 settlements had been established among the 64,451 Palestinians there (who constitute 29 communities) 70% of whom live in Area A in Jericho. According to ARIJ , by 2015 only 3 of 291 Palestinian communities in Area C received Israeli building approval (on just 5.7 hectares), and any construction outside that

9024-564: The Ma'ale Adumim settlement, killing one and wounding five, and drew criticism from the US due to increasing tensions. During the Israel-Hamas war, the lines between settlers and the military were described as having become "indistinguishable". East Jerusalem is defined in the Jerusalem Law of 1980 as part of Israel and its capital, Jerusalem . As such it is administered as part of the city and its district,

9165-507: The Ministry for Industry and Trade to stop the establishment of a competitive dairy in Ramallah . Ian Lustick states that Israel "virtually prevented" Palestinian investment in local industry and agriculture. Two decades later, 90% of West Bank imports came from Israel, with consumers paying more than they would for comparable products had they been able to exercise commercial autonomy. In 1968

9306-442: The PLO, and by a number of third parties, such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation , the United Nations (UN), Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and the European Union . The UN has repeatedly upheld the view that Israel's construction of settlements in the occupied territories constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. For decades, the United States also designated Israeli settlements as illegal, but

9447-427: The Palestinian National Authority has become Israel's subcontractor in the occupation. According to an analysis by the Israeli think tank Molad in 2017, Israel deploys 50–75% of its active IDF forces in the West Bank, while only one-third deals with Arab states, Iran , Hezbollah , Hamas and other perceived external threats. 80% of the former defend settlements, while 20% handle any behavior that Israel considers

9588-459: The Palestinian landscape" being heir to the English appropriation of common land and its conversion to private use – or to the conversion of Amerindian land into "white property". Early Zionist policy for land appropriation was outlined by Menachem Ussishkin in 1904 and, aside from voluntary sales, also foresaw the need to seize land by war and compel sale through expropriation via the ruling authority. It called this practice "colonization",

9729-417: The Palestinian territories is linked to the displacement of the Palestinian populations as evidenced by a 1979 Security Council Commission which established a link between Israeli settlements and the displacement of the local population. The commission also found that those who remained were under consistent pressure to leave to make room for further settlers who were being encouraged into the area. In conclusion

9870-418: The Palestinian village lands of Ni'lin , Kharbata , Saffa , Bil'in and Dir Qadis , increased by 55%. The majority of Israeli West Bank agriculture arises from contracts with the World Zionist Organization that bypass direct contracts with the Israeli Land Regulating Commissioner, and many were given to use private Palestinian land. With the Regularization Law of 2017 , Israel retroactively legalized

10011-462: The Palestinians accused of indiscriminate attacks. The occupation also has numerous critics within Israel itself, with some Israeli conscripts refusing to serve due to their objections to the occupation. The legal status of the occupation itself, and not just the actions taken as a part of it, have been increasingly scrutinized by the international community and by scholars in the field of international law, with most finding that regardless of whether

10152-606: The United Nations, an announcement which generated plans for a further 3,000 settler homes in the West Bank. Economic motivations also drive settlement: selling a 50–60 sq. m. apartment in Jerusalem allows the purchase of an apartment three times larger in settlements like Ma’aleh Adumim . One early metaphor likened the expansion of settlements to the baobab tree in The Little Prince , whose seeds take root and eventually cover

10293-487: The West Bank are implemented by the "Settlement Division" of the World Zionist Organization . Though formally a non-governmental organization , it is funded by the Israeli government and leases lands from the Civil Administration to settle in the West Bank. It is authorized to create settlements in the West Bank on lands licensed to it by the Civil Administration. Traditionally, the Settlement Division has been under

10434-492: The West Bank excluding East Jerusalem, with an additional 220,000 Jewish settlers residing in East Jerusalem. Additionally, over 20,000 Israeli citizens live in settlements in the Golan Heights. Following the 1967 Six-Day War , Israel occupied a number of territories. It took over the remainder of the Palestinian Mandate territories of the West Bank including East Jerusalem , from Jordan which had controlled

10575-518: The West Bank is required. Authority for planning and construction is held by the Israel Defense Forces Civil Administration . The area consists of four cities , thirteen local councils and six regional councils . The Yesha Council ( Hebrew : מועצת יש"ע , Moatzat Yesha , a Hebrew acronym for Judea , Samaria and Gaza ) is the umbrella organization of municipal councils in the West Bank. The actual buildings of

10716-520: The West Bank numbered 28,400. Incentives consisting of government mortgage and housing subsidies, tax incentives, business grants, free schooling, infrastructure projects, and defense were provided. After the Oslo Accords down to 2002, the settler population doubled. In 1972 the number of Israeli settlers in Area C were 1,200, in 1993 110,000, and in 2010 310,000 (excluding East Jerusalem). Before 1967 there were between 200,000 and 320,000 Palestinians in

10857-430: The West Bank, 198,629 were living in East Jerusalem, and almost 20,000 lived in settlements in the Golan Heights. By 2011, the number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem had increased to 328,423 people. In June 2014, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem had increased to 382,031 people, with over 20,000 Israeli settlers in the Golan Heights. In January 2015,

10998-466: The West Bank, and 40% (approximately 170,000 in 106 other settlements) live outside the major settlement blocs, where 214,000 reside. A continuity has often been observed between the Realpolitik processes governing the creation of Israel and the practices adopted with regard to the West Bank. Several analysts have likened the process to enclosure – the "establishment of exclusionary Jewish spaces on

11139-596: The West Bank, but also the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. In August 1963, within the framework of "expected directions of expansion", southern Lebanon up to the Litani River was also included. Though international pressure might foreseeably force Israel to evacuate these conquered lands, contingency plans also envisaged political circumstances whose development would enable Israel to maintain control of these occupied territory indefinitely. The model for controlling Palestinians in

11280-813: The West Bank, including the "Greater Jerusalem" area with the settlements Gush Etzion and Ma'aleh Adumim, other large concentrations of settlements in the West Bank, the entire Jordan Valley, a "security area", and a network of Israeli-only bypass roads. In the Road map for peace of 2002, which was never implemented, the establishment of a Palestinian state was acknowledged. Outposts would be dismantled. However, many new outposts appeared instead, few were removed. Israel's settlement policy remained unchanged. Settlements in East Jerusalem and remaining West Bank were expanded. While according to official Israeli policy no new settlements were built, at least some hundred unauthorized outposts were established since 2002 with state funding in

11421-438: The West Bank, most of its prime agricultural land and, by the eve of 1993 Oslo Accords, these confiscations had encompassed over three-quarters of the territory. The mechanisms by which Israel seizes or expropriates West Bank land were set forth in a detailed work by B'Tselem in 2002. Many practices outlined there were confirmed in the official Israeli Sasson Report of 2005, which focused on government subsidies and support for

11562-520: The West Bank, were this to eventuate, was to be modeled on the Israeli governance of their Palestinian communities under a strict regime of permits. Before the Six-Day War , there had been an unwritten agreement between Israel and the Jordanian government to uphold the neutrality of the border between the two countries along the Green Line . According to King Hussein , after Israel retaliated against Syrian-backed guerrilla infiltrations and sabotage by conducting on 13 November 1966 an assault on Samu in

11703-465: The West Bank. The first site chosen for settlement was Gush Etzion , on some 75 acres (30 ha) worked by Palestinian refugees. Hanan Porat was inspirational, intending by developing the settlement in order to put in place a practical application of the radical messianic Zionism of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook , whose father Abraham Isaac Kook 's Mercaz HaRav yeshiva in particular has exercised considerable influence on Israel's policies regarding

11844-490: The West Bank. According to Eyal Benvenisti , a 1972 judgement by Supreme Court justice Moshe Landau , siding with a military commander's decision to assign electrical supply in the Hebron area to the Israel Electric Corporation rather than to a Palestinian company, was to prove pivotal to encouraging the settlement project, since it placed the latter under the jurisdiction of the military authorities. During

11985-413: The West Bank. The United Nations Security Council has repeatedly affirmed that settlements in that territory are a "flagrant violation of international law", most recently in 2016 with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 . The International Court of Justice has also found that the establishment of Israeli settlements is illegal under international law. The creation and ongoing expansion of

12126-411: The administration and settlement of the occupied territories. The occupation has, according to some Israeli researchers, produced an ethos of conflict of which perceived security concerns, at times perplexing to outsiders, are a central feature. Although security is a fundamental Israeli preoccupation, the state has never formalized an official national security policy or doctrine. Before June 1967,

12267-445: The amount of unalienable Islamic property dedicated to pious ends confiscated by Israel at over 600,000 dunams. Ariel Sharon viewed the primary function of settling the West Bank as one of precluding the possibility of the formation of a Palestinian state, and his aim in promoting the 1982 invasion of Lebanon was to secure perpetual control of the former. As of 2017, excluding East Jerusalem, 382,916 Israelis have settled in

12408-414: The closest community in Israel to the Gaza Strip , located 400 meters away from the edge of the Palestinian town of Beit Lahia . At the southern edge of the village, a car park was converted into an Israel Defense Forces base and tanks were deployed. An electric fence was erected to stop infiltration attempts from Gaza, and three concrete walls were built against potential Palestinian snipers. The moshav

12549-401: The colonized, and in which the large power imbalance in favour of the dominator leads to a resort to guerilla tactics or terrorism by the dominated. Much of what Palestinians defend as acts of "resistance" are, in Israeli usage, regarded as "terrorism". Making speeches calling on fellow Palestinians to resist the occupation is construed in Israeli law as tantamount to advocacy of terrorism. In

12690-482: The commission stated that settlement in the Palestinian territories was causing "profound and irreversible changes of a geographic and demographic nature". The Israeli settlements in the West Bank fall under the administrative district of Judea and Samaria Area . Since December 2007, approval by both the Israeli Prime Minister and Israeli Defense Minister of all settlement activities (including planning) in

12831-515: The confiscation of Palestinian land and resources, leading to displacement of Palestinian communities and creating a source of tension and conflict. Settlements are often protected by the Israeli military and are frequently flashpoints for violence against Palestinians. Furthermore, the presence of settlements and Jewish-only bypass roads creates a fragmented Palestinian territory , seriously hindering economic development and freedom of movement for Palestinians . Currently, Israeli settlements exist in

12972-412: The conquest that secure defensible borders became a keynote of Israel's foreign policy. Four schools of thought came to dominate the question of the acquired territories. Two were closely linked to strategic questions of security. The territorialist approach, associated with Yigal Allon 's Allon Plan (1967–1970), would have annexed all of the West Bank south of Jerusalem and the lowland border along

13113-583: The creation of illegal Israeli outposts in knowing contravention of Israel's own laws. Under international law, a military may take temporary possession of occupied land, but not expropriate it. From 1957 to 1976 the IDF repeatedly requisitioned private Palestinian properties on the grounds of military necessity, only to turn them over for Jewish settlements, such as Matitiyahu , Neve Tzuf , Rimonim , Bet El , Kokhav Hashahar , Alon Shvut , El'azar , Efrat , Har Gilo , Migdal Oz , Gittit , Yitav and Qiryat Arba . This practice, after Palestinians appealed,

13254-512: The development is a response to the 2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers . In March 2024 and during the Israel-Hamas war , it was announced that Israel was planning on building more than 3,300 new homes in the Kedar and Ma'ale Adumim settlement in the West Bank. The settlement expansion was announced by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich after three Palestinians opened fire near

13395-522: The direct control of (his own) PMO, and to curtail Defense Minister Ehud Barak's authority. At the presentation of the Oslo II Accord on 5 October 1995 in the Knesset, PM Yitzhak Rabin expounded the Israeli settlement policy in connection with the permanent solution to the conflict. Israel wanted "a Palestinian entity, less than a state, which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in

13536-522: The entire planet. By the early eighties, several authoritative observers, among them Eyal Benvenisti , already concluded that the settlement expansion was close to a point of no return from total annexation. The impression left of the landscape has been described as follows: Israeli settlements form an upper-middle-class oasis of green grass, shopping malls, and swimming pools amidst open desert and enclaves of Palestinian refugee camps, villages, and towns with limited access to water. American citizens lead

13677-482: The establishment of settlements. Settlement growth in the Gaza Strip before 1977 was limited, as the Israeli labor party's policy of containment preferred the establishment of a collection of settlements along the border of the Strip. At this point, 6 settlements in the Strip existed, Kfar Darom, Netzarim, Morag, Eretz, Katif, and Netzer Hazani. With the Likud party's revisionist Zionist policies entering with Begin's government,

13818-571: The failure of the Roadmap, several new plans emerged to settle in major parts of the West Bank. In 2011, Haaretz revealed the Civil Administration's "Blue Line" -plan, written in January 2011, which aims to increase Israeli "state-ownership" of West Bank land ("state lands") and settlement in strategic areas like the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea area. In March 2012, it was revealed that

13959-505: The first decade of Israel occupation, when the Israeli Labor Party held power, settlement was concentrated on constructing a ring of "residential fortresses" around the Palestinian population of Jerusalem, and in the Jordan Valley . According to Ibrahim Matar, the purpose of this colonizing strategy around Jerusalem was to hem in and block the expansion of the Palestinian population, and to incentivize Palestinian emigration by inducing

14100-648: The ground" before the adversary realizes what is going on, is colloquially known as "dunam after dunam, goat after goat". The model applied to the West Bank was that used for the Judaization of the Galilee , consisting of setting up a checkered pattern of settlements not only around Palestinian villages but in between them. In addition to settlements considered legal, with government sponsorship, there are some 90 Israeli outposts (2013) built by private settler initiatives which, though illegal even in Israeli terms, are defended by

14241-652: The idea as a myth or outdated illusion. 106 retired Israeli generals, such as Eyal Ben-Reuven , Moshe Kaplinsky and Gadi Shamni , and Shin Bet heads, such as Yuval Diskin , have publicly opposed Benjamin Netanyahu 's claim that an independent state of Palestine would be a security threat, arguing variously that holding millions of Palestinians under occupation on ostensible security-related grounds, rather than pursuing an overall peace plan with Arab countries , endangers Israel's future. Israel extended its jurisdiction over East Jerusalem on 28 June 1967, suggesting internally it

14382-520: The immediate annexation of the West Bank. If security calculations influenced the relatively small-scale settlements advanced by the Israeli Labor Party, the reconfirmation of Likud in 1981 led to a rapid escalation of settlement as a religious-national programme. At the same time the military censors forbade the local Palestinian press from reporting any news about settlements, expropriations or legal moves made to block them. By 1983, settlers in

14523-448: The latter has been constructed within the West Bank, as opposed to being entirely on Israel's side of the Green Line . As of January 2023, there are 144 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including 12 in East Jerusalem ; the Israeli government administers the West Bank as the Judea and Samaria Area , which does not include East Jerusalem. In addition to the settlements, the West Bank

14664-455: The local population. Yesh Din discovered that of 781 such incidents covered from 2005 to 2011, 90% of the Israeli investigations were closed without indictments, and many of the culprits were Hilltop Youth . In an analysis of 119 cases of settlers killing Palestinians, it emerged that only 13 were sent to jail: six were convicted of murder, only one of whom was sentenced to life imprisonment, while of seven convicted of manslaughter, one received

14805-404: The moshav's residents were killed by Hamas . In the 2010s Netiv HaAsara became an increasingly popular tourist attraction among foreign visitors drawn to a community where ordinary life continues despite constant threat of rocket attacks from neighboring Gaza. An observation platform designed by architect Zvi Pasternak - expected to open in spring 2018 - will enable visitors to see Gaza City to

14946-423: The most entrenched and institutionalized – belligerent occupation in modern history", issuing from 1967 to 2014 over 1,680 military orders regarding the West Bank. The third military order, issued two days after the onset of the occupation, specified that military courts were to apply the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding the protection of civilians in a war zone: within 4 months this stipulation

15087-402: The occupation had been legal when it began, it has become illegal over time. Israel's economy was 10 times larger than the West Bank's on the eve of the occupation but had experienced two years of recession. The West Bank's population stood between 585,500 and 803,600 and, while under Jordanian rule , accounted for 40% of Jordan's GNP, with an annual growth rate of 6–8%. Ownership of land

15228-539: The official positions of the other three members of the Middle East Quartet . Certain observers and Palestinians occasionally use the term "Israeli colonies" as a substitute for the term "settlements". Settlements range in character from farming communities and frontier villages to urban suburbs and neighborhoods. The four largest settlements, Modi'in Illit , Ma'ale Adumim , Beitar Illit and Ariel , have achieved city status. Ariel has 18,000 residents, while

15369-503: The outskirts of Arab neighborhoods, for example in Hebron . In Jerusalem, there are urban neighborhoods where Jews and Arabs live together: the Muslim Quarter , Silwan , Abu Tor , Sheikh Jarrah and Shimon HaTzadik . Under the Oslo Accords , the West Bank was divided into three separate parts designated as Area A, Area B and Area C . Leaving aside the position of East Jerusalem, all of

15510-526: The overcrowded Arab areas, living under severe restrictions on their daily movement and commerce. One 2012 report stated that the effect of Israeli policies was that, amidst flourishing modern Jewish settlements, the Arab sector had been allowed to decay into a slum where criminals, many of them collaborators, thrived. In 2018 legislative measures were announced to strip a further 12,000 Palestinians of their right to live in East Jerusalem. Israel's policies regarding

15651-542: The presence of hostile, armed forces on the high ground of the West Bank would pose a security risk to the narrow Israeli land between the West Bank and the Mediterranean coast, which contains some of the country's biggest strategic assets, including Ben Gurion airport, the largest electric power station, and highly populated cities. Over half of the Israeli public believes settlements reinforce Israel's security. In recent years, numerous top defense experts disagree, dismissing

15792-553: The project as being strictly for military use while in reality, Kiryat Arba was planned for settler use. The method of confiscating land by military order for establishing civilian settlements was an open secret in Israel throughout the 1970s, but publication of the information was suppressed by the military censor . In the 1970s, Israel's methods for seizing Palestinian land to establish settlements included requisitioning for ostensibly military purposes and spraying of land with poison. The Likud government of Menahem Begin, from 1977,

15933-460: The relevant UN bodies adjudicating the matter are " anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic ". Though settler vigilantism dates back to the late 1970s, when they were authorized to bear arms in self-defense – one ordinance exempted them from military service in Israel while drafting them into West Bank units and another gave them powers to demand Palestinians provide identification and even to arrest them – settler terrorism formally dates back at least to

16074-648: The requirement to publish the intention to expropriate in an official gazette . Appeals were no longer dealt with in local courts but by the military court system. Lastly, land sales were subject to severe restrictions, except for purchases by the Jewish National Fund . Since Palestinians regard sale of their land to Jews as treasonable, the law was altered to enable Jewish buyers to withhold registration of property acquired from Palestinians for 15 years. Many fraudulent practices in this regard flourished until they were formally stopped by law in 1985. One estimate put

16215-652: The responsibility of the Agriculture Ministry. Since the Oslo Accords, it was always housed within the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). In 2007, it was moved back to the Agriculture Ministry. In 2009, the Netanyahu Government decided to subject all settlement activities to additional approval of the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister. In 2011, Netanyahu sought to move the Settlement Division again under

16356-502: The rest have around 37,000 to 55,500 each. Settlement has an economic dimension, much of it driven by the significantly lower costs of housing for Israeli citizens living in Israeli settlements compared to the cost of housing and living in Israel proper. Government spending per citizen in the settlements is double that spent per Israeli citizen in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem , while government spending for settlers in isolated Israeli settlements

16497-521: The same occupied territory are tried in civil courts. The arrangement has been described as "de facto segregation" by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. A bill to formally extend Israeli law to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank was rejected in 2012. The basic military laws governing the West Bank are influenced by what is called the "pipelining" of Israeli legislation. As

16638-459: The same year (1977) that there was a plan to settle 2 million Jews in the West Bank by 2000. The government abrogated the prohibition from purchasing occupied land by Israelis; the "Drobles Plan", a plan for large-scale settlement in the West Bank meant to prevent a Palestinian state under the pretext of security became the framework for its policy. The "Drobles Plan" from the World Zionist Organization , dated October 1978 and named "Master Plan for

16779-453: The scale of settlement expansion increased, although the basic policies relating to the settlements did not change. By 1978, 13 settlements had been built as part of a buffer zone along Gaza's southern border in Rafah. The discussions at Camp David that year surrounding the idea of potential future Palestinian autonomy would trigger an increase in settlement expansion in the Gaza Strip, following

16920-604: The settlements are in Area C which comprises about 60% of the West Bank. Some settlements were established on sites where Jewish communities had existed during the British Mandate of Palestine or even since the First Aliyah or ancient times. At the end of 2010, 534,224 Jewish Israelis lived in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. 314,132 of them lived in the 121 authorised settlements and 102 unauthorised settlement outposts on

17061-420: The settlements have led to Israel's policies being criticized as an example of settler colonialism . Israel has been accused of major violations of international human rights law , including collective punishment , in its administration of the occupied Palestinian territories . Israeli settlers and civilians living or traveling through the West Bank are subject to Israeli law , and are represented in

17202-680: The settler takeover of thousands of hectares of privately owned Palestinian land and some 4,500 homes which settlers had built without obtaining official permits. By that year, the fifth decade of occupation, Israel had managed to establish (2017) 237 settlements, housing roughly 580,000 settlers. One technique used to established settlements was to set up a paramilitary encampment for army personnel to be used for agricultural and military training for soldiers. These were then slowly transformed into civilian settlements, often without official approval. This could be justified as legal because they were initially IDF bases without civilians. Another technique

17343-537: The south and Ashkelon to the north. The Path to Peace wall mosaic art project and educational center is located on the border between Gaza and Israel at Netiv HaAsara. Israeli settlement Israeli settlements , also called Israeli colonies , are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories . They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity , and have been constructed on lands that Israel has militarily occupied since

17484-462: The territories since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and the Gaza Strip from Egypt , which had held Gaza under occupation since 1949 . From Egypt, it also captured the Sinai Peninsula and from Syria it captured most of the Golan Heights , which since 1981 has been administered under the Golan Heights Law . As early as September 1967, Israeli settlement policy was progressively encouraged by

17625-453: The territories it occupies, with most arguing all states are duty bound to observe them. Israel alone challenges this premise, arguing that the West Bank and Gaza are "disputed territories", and that the Conventions do not apply because these lands did not form part of another state's sovereign territory, and that the transfer of Jews into areas like the West Bank is not a government act but

17766-500: The territory it is occupying constitutes a war crime , although Israel disputes that this statute applies to the West Bank. On 20 December 2019, the International Criminal Court announced the opening of an investigation of war crimes in the Palestinian territories . The presence and ongoing expansion of existing settlements by Israel and the construction of outposts is frequently criticized as an obstacle to peace by

17907-620: The territory, then ruled by Jordan , during the Six-Day War . The status of the West Bank as a militarily occupied territory has been affirmed by the International Court of Justice and, with the exception of East Jerusalem , by the Israeli Supreme Court . The West Bank, excepting East Jerusalem, is administered by the Israeli Civil Administration , a branch of the Israeli Ministry of Defense . Considered to be

18048-490: The transfer of some 230,000 Jewish civilians into 145 West Bank and Gaza settlements and approximately 110 outposts. By 2016, approximately 42% of the settlement workforce (55,440) found employment in those settlements. The ultra-Orthodox have dominated the process from the beginning: from 2003 to 2007 alone the population of Beitar Illit , whose construction was facilitated by the expropriation of 1,500 dunams of Naḥḥālīn farmland, rose 40%, while Modi'in Illit , built on

18189-462: The two groups in 1993, the ratio is 115 people per square mile for Jewish settlers and over 9,000 people per square mile for Palestinians. Sara Roy estimates the increase in Palestinian population density in Gaza due to Israeli policies alone to be an increase of almost 2,000 people per square mile in 1993. All the settlements were surrounded by electric fences or barbed wire. While the settlements maintained an isolated economic system, they affected

18330-583: The use of land in the rest of the West Bank display three interlocking aspects, all designed around a project of Judaization of what was Palestinian territory. These policies consist in (a) planning for land use (b) expropriations of land and (c) the construction of settlements. The "Letters of Mutual Recognition" accompanying the "Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements" (the DOP), signed in Washington on 13 September 1993, provided for

18471-632: The wells and 37% of the springs in the West Bank . The early occupation set severe limits on public investment and comprehensive development programmes in the territories. British and Arab commercial banks operating in the West Bank were closed down soon after Israel assumed power there. Bank Leumi then opened nine branches, without successfully replacing the earlier system. Farmers could get loans, but Palestinian businessmen avoided taking out loans from them since they charged 9% compared to 5% interest in Jordan. Land confiscations led to rural labour seeking employment, even if mainly menial, in Israel, causing

18612-430: Was Kfar Etzion , in the southern West Bank, although that location was outside the Allon Plan. Many settlements began as Nahal settlements . They were established as military outposts and later expanded and populated with civilian inhabitants. According to a secret document dating to 1970, obtained by Haaretz , the settlement of Kiryat Arba was established by confiscating land by military order and falsely representing

18753-402: Was a target of Qassam rockets , Katyusha rockets, and mortar shellings , In 2007, the Popular Resistance Committees sent two guerrillas to infiltrate the moshav, but they were killed by the IDF . Dana Galkowicz, a 22-year-old Israeli-Brazilian woman, was killed on 14 July 2005 at Netiv HaAsara by a Qassam rocket. On 10 January 2007, a nine-year-old school girl was killed. On 10 March 2010,

18894-544: Was annexed while maintaining abroad that it was simply an administrative move to provide services to residents. The move was deemed "null and void" by the United Nations Security Council . The elected Arab council was disbanded, and a number of services provided by Palestinian companies were transferred to their Israeli competitors. The population ratio for this united Jerusalem was set ideally as 76% Jewish and 24% Arab, and Jewish Israeli settlers were given

19035-633: Was blocked by the High Court in the case of Elon Moreh (1979). Thereafter, the Ottoman Land Law of 1858 , which enabled the sovereign to seize certain types of land, though much private land had not been registered to avoid taxes or military service with the Ottomans, was reactivated. Thirdly, land temporally abandoned during the 1967 war deemed absentee property came under trusteeship , but since Israel rarely allows refugees to return, instances where land

19176-547: Was categorical, and that "civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention ", indicating that the Prime Minister Levi Eshkol was therefore aware the promotion of settlements in the West Bank would be illegal. The International community has also since rejected Israel's unwillingness to accept the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to

19317-582: Was erased from the order. Jordan maintains that some of the laws ostensibly retained from its code, stemming from the Mandatory Defence (Emergency) Regulations of 1945, had in fact been abolished, and were invalid as they conflicted with the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. The Israeli Military Governorate was dissolved in 1981, and in its place the Israeli military established the Israeli Civil Administration . The military order establishing

19458-400: Was generally collective, and the 19th century Ottoman land code prevailed, which classified land as either – waqf , mülk , miri , matruke , and mawat – the last three being formally state land, though Jordan never considered these last three as state property, and only a very small proportion of the West Bank was registered as such under Jordanian rule. Education was (and remains )

19599-485: Was more supportive to settlement in other parts of the West Bank, by organizations like Gush Emunim and the Jewish Agency /World Zionist Organization, and intensified the settlement activities. In a government statement, Likud declared that the entire historic Land of Israel is the inalienable heritage of the Jewish people and that no part of the West Bank should be handed over to foreign rule. Ariel Sharon declared in

19740-426: Was subject to demolition. In that one year, they calculate, Israel confiscated a further 41,509 hectares, demolished 482 homes – displacing 2,450 people – uprooted 13,000 trees, and subjected Palestinians and their property to assault on some 898 distinct occasions. Israeli settlements constituted 6% of the land, while military zones had been declared over 29%. From 1967 to 2003, successive Israeli governments assisted

19881-480: Was to render land momentarily unusable. Gitit for example was established by closing off 5,000 dunams of the village lands of Aqraba and then spraying it with defoliants. On occasion, creating settlements is hailed as a measure to punish Palestinians collectively, as a reaction to a Palestinian killing of a settler, or in response to the granting of non-member observer status to the Palestinian State by

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