Israeli Ministers Patrolling West Bank , calling for Annexation and celebrating ‘Pastoral Violation Farms’

By: Madeeha Al-A’raj
The National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements stated in its latest weekly report , that the Israeli Supreme Planning Council at the Israeli Civil Administration is approving the construction of more housing units in settlements in light of Israeli reports that showed negative migration in many existing settlements in the West Bank, and a clear reluctance to publish information about the number of uninhabited homes in these settlements, especially those located deep in the West Bank.
Hebrew sources revealed that the Supreme Planning Council affiliated to the Israeli army began last week discussing the approval of the construction of hundreds of settlement units in the settlements of 16 units Givat Ze ev, northwest of occupied Jerusalems, Kfar Tapuah at the intersection of St. 60 with the Trans-Samaria Highway, south of the town of Hawara in the Nablus Governorate 105 units, Talmon/Harsha and Talmon northwest of Ramallah 464 and 194 units respectively, and Ma ale Amos south of Bethlehem 76 settlement units, for a total of 855 settlement units between deposit and final approval.
All this came in light of the changes made by the Netanyahu-Smotrich government in June 2023, which abolished the approval of the Army Minister for each stage of settlement plan development. Noting that previously, every construction plan in the settlements required prior approval of the minister, who recently reduced the pace of settlement plan development to four times a year, with thousands of housing units approved in a single session of the Supreme Planning Council. In the past 2 years, we have witnessed a change, where the Supreme Planning Council meets weekly and approves hundreds of housing units at each meeting. This government seeks to normalize planning in the settlements and minimize public and international attention and criticism.
The Israeli Peace Now that monitors the Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, stated that since the beginning of Dec. 2024, the Supreme Planning Council has been holding weekly discussions to approve additional settlement units, but since the beginning of 2025, with the plans scheduled to be approved, the Council has approved the construction of 15,190 settlement units in less than 4 months, which constitutes a record number compared to previous years.
For comparison, the movement stated that the previous record year was 2023, with the construction of 12,349 settlement units. Through this shift towards approving plans on a weekly basis, the occupation government seeks to legitimize construction in settlements in the West Bank with less public and international attention and criticism. With this pace of decisions, the occupation government plans to increase the number of settlers to the highest possible number, noting that their number according to data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, reached about 770,000 by the end of 2024, distributed among 180 settlements and 256 settlement outposts, including 138 outposts classified as pastoral and agricultural ones.
Meanwhile, the Local Planning and Building Committee at the Israeli occupation municipality in Jerusalem is examining a new Israeli plan for settlement expansion in East Jerusalem on Palestinian lands southeast of the city, part of which were seized under the ‘Absentee Property Law’ a move that reflects the widespread use of the law to deepen Israeli control over the occupied city. The plan called ‘Southeast Gilo’ will be implemented at the expense of lands and olive groves belonging to residents of the Palestinian city of Beit Jala. It includes the construction of 1,900 new settlement units on 176 dunams of open land located between the Tunnels Road and the settlement.
Data indicated that 29% of the land covered by the plan is classified as private property, 12% is owned by the Israeli municipality and State, 15% is under the administration of the ‘Custodian for Absentee Property’, and 44% isn’t officially registered. According to the Israeli organization Ir Amim, which specializes in the occupied Jerusalem affairs, the occupation authorities seized a large portion of this land through the implementation of this law, which allows the confiscation of the property of Palestinians, who were displaced in 1948.
A researcher in the organization, Aviv Tatarsky said, ‘The only reason Israel classifies the owners of these lands as absentee property is that it annexed their fields to its borders, but kept them outside those borders as residents of the West Bank without rights.’ He emphasized that the widespread use of the Absentee Property Law to build settlements in East Jerusalem is one of the most prominent manifestations of the discrimination practiced by Israel in the occupied city.
This settlement activity, spearheaded by Moshe Leon, the mayor of Jerusalem, and Bezalel Smotrich through his Civil Administration, accompanied by a number of Israeli government ministers to encourage the continuation of the annexation policy, which has become official ‘though undeclared’ government policy. In this context, four Israeli ministers called last week for the annexation of the occupied West Bank, joining other Israeli officials, who have made similar calls in this regard. The ministers made the call during their participation in the inauguration of a neighborhood in the Har Bracha settlement, which the occupation established on Mount Gerizim, south of Nablus.
A number of senior ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu s Government called for the imposition of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. The ministers are Army Minister Yisrael Katz, Settlement Minister, Orit Strook, Justice Minister, Yariv Levin, and Negev and Galilee Minister, Yitzhak Wasserlauf. Katz considered the settlements ‘Israel s line of defense’. Adding that Israel would continue to strike what he claimed ‘terrorism in northern Samaria’, using the biblical term for the West Bank.
Smotrich and Strook also participated in the inauguration ceremony of several pastoral farms in the southern Hebron Hills, noting that these farms are spread throughout the West Bank play a significant role in the de facto annexation plans, working to empty Area C of Palestinians and herd them into cities. According to Israeli sources, the settlers in the Knesset and those on the ground operate as a pliers, controlling the state institutions most closely connected to the West Bank, transferring budgets and granting increasing legitimacy to the terrorist hilltop youth, who are working on the ground to expel the largest number of Palestinians, pending official annexation.
At that ceremony, FM and Minister of Settlement in the Army Ministry, Smotrich celebrated the delivery of security vehicles and equipment to settlers in the Hebron Hills settlements and indicated that the government would continue to invest in the settlements and strengthen the ‘resilience of the settlers’ as he put it during his tour, accompanied by Strook, Smotrich revealed the existence of 25 new settlement farms in the Hebron Hills area, explained that each farm controls an area ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 dunams, although most of them are inhabited by only one family with a flock of sheep under the protection of the ‘Hilltop Youth” thugs.
During the tour, Smotrich said, ‘We have equipped these farms with cars and night surveillance cameras, where the settlers need security, and everything necessary to ensure their protection.’ For her part, Strook addressed the settlers, saying: ‘You are the real warriors. You are the ones who preserve the Land of Israel,’ referring to her absolute support for the expansion of the settlement project, which is a clear violation of international law, Security Council resolutions, and the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the continued presence of the occupying state in the territories it occupied in the June 1967 aggression.
Worth mentioning that the advisory opinion, issued on July 20, 2024, confirmed as the highest international judicial body that the continued presence of the State of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories is illegal and that the State of Israel is obligated to end its illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territories as soon as possible and that the State of Israel is obligated to immediately cease all new settlement activities and evacuate all settlers from the occupied Palestinian territories.
The State of Israel is obligated to compensate for the damages caused to all natural´-or-legal persons concerned in the occupied Palestinian territories and affirmed that all Member States of the UN are obligated not to recognize the legitimacy of the situation resulting from the illegal presence of the State of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, and not to provide aid´-or-assistance in maintaining the situation resulting from the continued presence of the State of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories.
As for the ‘Pastoral Farms’, it isn’t only the state that provides financial support and allocates land to them, which are essentially terrorist settlement outposts, but other entities, such as the Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization, also provide such support. Reports have recently emerged regarding the activity of this division in this regard, whereby this division, ‘on behalf of the state’, has allocated thousands of dunams in the West Bank to these farms, free from any public oversight´-or-supervision. This was achieved by granting scores of settlers ‘pasture allocation contracts’ and allocating about 80,000 dunams in the West Bank to settlers for grazing purposes.
The contracts enable the settlers to control thousands of additional dunams not covered by the allocation contracts and to obtain financial support. Settlers use these allocation contracts with military authorities on the ground to pressure them to help them expel Palestinian shepherds and farmers from the areas they seek to control. The contracts reveal that the department has allocated large areas to dozens of settlers without tenders´-or-financial compensation. The allocation contracts stipulate that the purpose of the land allocation is ‘grazing’, but in most cases, the settlers have established illegal settlement outposts without building permits and in a manner that clearly contradicts the terms of the contract.
According to Peace Now, in all these contracts, there is a mismatch between the area specified in the contract in dunams and the area being controlled. Furthermore, some contracts allocate land to settlers that had previously been allocated in other contracts to other settlers for residential´-or-agricultural purposes. Some of the allocations include land privately belonging to Palestinians totaling about 9,000 dunams, which is cannot legally be under the control of the Settlement Division nor be allocated to settlers.
More than 10,000 dunams of the land allocated in these contracts are declared land but haven’t been reviewed by the so-called ‘Blue Line Team’, which contravenes the -dir-ectives of the Legal Advisor. Furthermore, more than 5,000 dunams of the land allocated to settlers are located within firing zones, areas that settlers are prohibited from entering in one of these contracts, the Settlement Division allocated about 1,060 dunams of land within Palestinian Authority territory in Area B to a settler.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Demolishing an agricultural room and walls in the Rafat town, a commercial facility in the Al-Jib town, and a 50m2 house in the Silwan town, belonging to Kazim Abu Shafe, under the pretext of building without a permit.
- Attacking a bus with stones, shattering its windows in the Sheikh Jarrah Neighborhood.
Hebron:
- Storming the Wadi al-Rakhim, west of Susya village, and destroyed agricultural crops and more than half a dunum planted with wheat and barley crops belonging to Ali Shanaran, while the fire spread to the equipment and wood of a house under construction in the same area.
- Seizing a herd of sheep belonging to Issa al-Hamamdeh, near Khirbet al-Tabban in Masafer Yatta.
- Storming the land of Saeed al-Amour, vandalized some property, assaulted residents, and forced them to leave their pastures in Khirbet al-Rakeez in Masafer Yatta.
- Demolishing agricultural room and a mobile home belonging to a citizen from the Al-Jamal family, and an agricultural room belonging to the Al-Awawdeh family, in addition to damaging a water well in Deir Razih village, besides bulldozing lands in the Khallet Al-Aqayleh area, located near the Bassam area of the village.
- Demolishing a 6-story residential building under construction belonging to citizen Moh’d Issa Hussein Alqam, under the pretext of building without a permit in Wadi Al-Wahadin, south of Beit Umar.
- Damaging 2 houses and a water well in Masafer Yatta belonging to citizen Munther Khader Al-Rubai, which houses 7 people, and a house, a sheep pen and a cave, belonging to citizen Khaled Al-Amour. In Wadi Al-Jawaya community.
- Demolishing a water well belonging to citizen Ali Al-Shawaheen after the demolition of the 2 houses in the At-Tuwana village, besides filling a number of wells and springs with waste-water in the Tarqumiya town,
- Erecting a tent on citizens’ lands in the Sha’b Al-Batm area in preparation for seizing them.
Bethlehem:
- Demolishing a residential building in the Za tara town, east of Bethlehem, after storming the town and taking up positions in the Sulaibiya area to the east, and demol-;-ished 3-story building, each 150m2, belonging to Moh’d Bakirat.
Ramallah:
- Handing over stop-work notices to residential buildings in the Al-Bireh city, several of which are located in areas A. They also decided to confiscate dozens of dunams of the city s land. The Al-Bireh Municipality confirmed that the 6 buildings are duly licensed and approved since 1979, and fall within its jurisdiction, explaining that they are located within its master plan.
- Injuring 8 citizens, 1 of them by bullets, and burned three agricultural facilities, in a settler attack on the Sinjil town. Moreover, a young man from the Silwad town was injured after being beaten by settlers near the entrance to the neighboring town of Deir Jarir.
- Uprooting hundreds of olive trees and bulldozed about 2,000 dunams of citizens land, most of which are perennial trees in the Um Safa village. They also paved a -dir-t road in the southern area of the village, linking the settlements of ‘Halmish’ to the west and ‘Ateret’ to the east.
- Attacking farmers while they were working on their agricultural lands and forced them to leave their lands at gunpoint in the Al-Khallah area in the Turmusayya town.
- Killing citizen Wael Basem Ghafri, 48 as a result of suffocation from the gas fired by the occupation forces, while providing protection for scores of settlers who stormed the Al-Tall area in the south of the Sinjil town, north of Ramallah and set up a tent on it to be the nucleus of a new settlement outpost.
- Attacking citizens and burned an agricultural room, a workshop under construction, and 3 barracks, and stole 45 sheep in the Ni’lin town.
Salfeet:
- Injuring citizen Ahmed Sarsour from the Sarta village, and the brothers Saqr and Abdul Rahim Al-Aqra’ from the Bidya town, as a result of an attack carried out by settlers while they were on their agricultural lands in the Bidya town, west of Salfeet Governorate.
- Attacking farmers while they were plowing their lands in the Al-Yanbou’ area, west of the Farkha village, while others attacked citizens’ property in the Wadi Qana area, near the Deiristiya town, destroyed agricultural contents, cut down and broke a number of trees, and bulldozed them.
- Bulldozing lands located between the Haris and Kafl Haris towns, northwest of Salfeet, these lands are planted with ancient olive trees, while the occupation authorities delivered a notice of seizure of these lands, estimated at an area of 65 dunums, giving citizens only 24 hours for objection.
- Demolishing 2 houses in the Iskaka village, belonging to the brothers Iyad and Mu ayyad Harb, while settlers attacked citizens vehicles near the entrance of the Bruqin town and erected a tent.
Qalqilia:
- Demolishing a 40m2 agricultural room in the Nabi Elias village, east of Qalqilia, built on a 1,700-m2 plot of land. During the demolition, the land surrounding the agricultural room was deliberately leveled.
- Bulldozing lands belonging to citizens from the Jinsafut and Al-Funduq villages, with the aim of paving a wide settlement road linking the Israeli settlements located east of Qalqilia with its northern surroundings. The new settlement road passes through the main Qalqilia - Nablus road, known as ‘55’ to connect the settlements built on the lands of Jinsafut village, namely: Immanuel, Qarnei Shomron, and Qedumim. This road will destroy at least 220 dunams of fertile agricultural land, belonging to 70 farmers, in addition to threatening 200 additional dunams being adjacent to the settlement bypass road, rendering them.
Jenin:
- Demolishing 10-donum agricultural greenhouses in the Al-Jalameh village, north of Jenin, belonging to Wasif Abu Farha and his son. It was built 20 years ago and were planted with strawberries, cucumbers, and beans, and it was the only source of income for his children.
Jordan Valley:
- Stealing water pumps belonging to farmers in Khirbet al-Deir, attacked solar panels in the area.
- Grazing sheep among citizens homes and vandalized citizens property to prevent them from accessing their land in the Bedouin village of Ras Ein al-Auja, they also stormed the Shallal al-Auja Bedouin community north of Jericho, destroyed equipment and sheep feeders, and damaged large areas of crops there.
- Stealing 2 water tanks used for watering livestock, while others attacked a water network used to irrigate 150 dunams of land belonging to a farmer near the village of Bardala In the Marah Allan area, northern Jordan Valley.
- Attacking tents of Shamekh Daraghmeh, threatened him with weapons, and assaulted a local resident by spraying them with pepper spray in Khirbet al-Farisiya.
- Blocking the road of citizen Suleiman Malihat, a resident of the Arab Malihat community, and assaulted him before spraying pepper gas in his face, under the protection of Israeli occupation soldiers in Khirbet al-Farisiya.
- Notifying the demolition of residential structures and pens belonging to citizen Iyad Hafez Daraghmeh, under the pretext of not having a license in Khirbet al-Deir in the northern Jordan Valley.
- Closing a -dir-t road west of the Bardala village that connects the village with the Qa un Plain, which means scores of farmers are unable to access their agricultural land.

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