With public distracted, Smotrich launches drive towards annexation of West Bank

While attention at home and abroad has been diverted by the Gaza war, Israel’s far-right government has made a major leap towards annexing the occupied West Bank over the last year, creating 43 new outposts and confiscating huge swathes of land , according to  Israeli and Palestinian observers.

They predict even greater acceleration towards Israeli supremacy and sovereignty during the next year with the advent of the second Trump administration and the consolidation of Israeli administrative changes that facilitate land poaching and settlement activity.

“Israel has been moving faster than ever in increasing the Jewish presence,” said Ghassan Khatib a former Palestinian Authority Labor minister who teaches at Bir Zeit University.  

A report by settlement watchdog Peace Now issued last month also highlighted the period since the October 7 brutal Hamas attack started the war as an inflection point. “The war and the political agenda set by settlers to impose sovereignty in the West Bank have created conditions that are being exploited for unprecedented settlement activities, leading to a rapid and unchecked settlement process,” the report said.

Public attention now is fixed on northern Gaza where the IDF is displacing civilians en masse and carrying out devastating bombardments in what it says is an effort to prevent Hamas from regrouping. The anti-occupation IDF veterans group, Breaking the Silence, has labelled  the offensive “ethnic cleansing”.

A senior IDF officer said early this month that Palestinians displaced by the army will not be allowed to return to their homes but the IDF spokesman later sought to counter this impression, telling journalists the remarks had been taken out of context and do not reflect IDF values.

In the West Bank, establishment of outposts, declaration of Palestinian property as state land to be used for settlement, and settler violence including attacks that drove out communities all increased at unprecedented rates during the period since October 7,  according to data in the Peace Now report. Settler attacks killed ten Palestinians in the period between Oct 7, 2023 and Sept 16, 2024,
according to the UN Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs.

Meanwhile the primary driver of settlements in the coalition, Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich, is voicing satisfaction with the way things are headed, especially after the election of Donald Trump. His previous administration’s policies included specifying that the US does not view settlements as illegal despite their violating the Fourth Geneva Convention according to nearly everyone’s interpretation but Israel’s. Smotrich told party members last week that Israel is “a step away” from annexing its West Bank settlements.

On the ground, it has been full speed ahead with a drive that comes at the expense of Palestinians collectively and individually. According to Peace Now, 43 new outposts were established during the past year, compared to an average of seven a year previously. Nineteen communities were displaced by settler violence, more than any previous year. An astonishing 24,193 dunams (a dunam is effectively 1000 square metres) were declared state land, effectively a method of confiscation from Palestinian owners. That figure marked an exponential leap, equalling half of the total area declared as state land since 1993.

Zanuta and Simri were among the emptied Palestinian communities in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron. “After October 7, everything changed,” says Hafez Hureini, a Masafer Yatta community leader. “Settlers in army uniforms with masks on their faces terrorised families to get them to leave. There is no accountability and no stopping of these crimes. We expect the worst.”

The IDF spokesman responded that in cases of violence by Israeli citizens against Palestinians or their property, soldiers are “required to stop the violation and if necessary to delay or detain the suspects until the police arrive at the scene. In situations where soldiers fail to adhere to IDF orders, the incidents are thoroughly reviewed and disciplinary actions are implemented accordingly.”

Israel is literally paving the way to annexation. Smotrich said in June that the government allocated seven billion shekels for new roads which will shorten the time to the Tel Aviv metropolitan area and help bring a million more Israelis to live in “Judea and Samaria”.

Meanwhile, Peace Now noted, the army and settlers blocked off hundreds of roads to Palestinian cities, towns and villages, turning travel into a protracted ordeal and further harming a vulnerable economy.

The IDF spokesman’s office said roadblocks and checkpoints were necessitated by a “significant increase” in terrorist attacks since the war started. It said there had been thousands of attempted attacks and that as part of counterterrorism operations, “dynamic checkpoints” have been put up.

But the numbers do not tell the full story. In a crucial administrative change, Smotrich and his Settlements Authority took over powers previously wielded by the army, a step considered by some scholars to be tantamount to formal annexation. In practice, this influences everything from land policy to home demolitions to legalizing outposts.

The change portends that as they get further settled in their new posts, ideologically minded administrators selected by Smotrich will push annexation steps more vigorously than their predecessors from the IDF. Thus state land declarations, seen as a form of theft by Peace Now and Palestinians, are expected to rise even more.

“The whole system has changed and we’ll see the fruits of it next year,” said Hagit Ofran, director of Settlements Watch at Peace Now. “Smotrich put in people who are totally committed and there is no place anymore for people who want to see that before taking a step all the papers [are in order].”

That commitment is apparent among families of the Evyatar settlement near Nablus, which started as an illegal outpost in 2021, but was declared a fully-fledged settlement in July after a state land declaration by Smotrich’s administrators effectively dispossessed Palestinian owners from the neighboring town of Beita. The town’sresidents waged an uprising against IDF troops guarding the site for the settlers but failed, at enormous cost, to stop the state and army backed consolidation of trespassing.

Evyatar has an army base, a kindergarten and a large yeshiva. Its inhabitants, whose numbers increased over the last year and now total 16 families, are messianic settlers whom non-believers would view with scorn but who  are so motivated about “redeeming” biblical territory and so close to Smotrich that they are playing a central role in the acceleration of the annexation drive.

“The sky is the limit,” says Tehiya Haim, a mother of ten whose family was among the first to create the outpost. “We are moving ahead and we are developing with God’s help.”

The year since the start of what she terms the Simchat Torah War (Hamas’s brutal attack fell on that holiday) has been difficult in Evyatar and for the entire people of Israel, Haim said. “All of our husbands were drafted and displayed a giving of the soul for the nation of Israel, the state of Israel and the land of Israel.”  She said the war was strengthening the tie of the nation of Israel to the Land of Israel.

In her version of Judaism, human action brings about redemption. “Establishing new settlements brings about redemption in every realm and is the key to the redemption of the people of Israel,” she explained, saying she is helping efforts underway to settle in Gaza and wants later to settle in Lebanon also. Haim says the bible defines them both and other territories presently in the Arab world as part of the Land of Israel.

Asked about relations with Arabs, Haim replied: “We really, really don’t deal with that. We deal with the building of the Land of Israel.” Smotrich, however, has been more outspoken, referring to Palestinians last week as “today’s Nazis” whose land should be taken away.

Smotrich has also used genocidal rhetoric about the Palestinians, suggesting Israel could kill two million Palestinians in Gaza if not for its need to take into account the international community.

Under his doctrine, Palestinians are to be encouraged to leave “Judea and Samaria” unless they relinquish all national aspirations and accept inferior status.

Khatib, the former PA minister, says Palestinians are being left to face Israel’s annexation drive alone. But he adds that people intend to stay put. “People are very worried about the threat to the land and they are also worried that this is happening with the most minimal attention ever by the outside world.”

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