Israeli Military Orders Aim to Legitimize Outposts, Expand Settlement and Displace Palestinians

By: Madeeha Al-A’raj
8 – 15 May, 2026


The Israeli Newspaper Haaretz revealed that military orders issued by the Israeli Army have been used in recent years to accelerate the legalization of settlement outposts and the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, alongside the ongoing policy of displacing Palestinians from areas designated by the Israeli government as ‘fire zones’ under the pretext of military use. Official documents show that these areas are also used as vital infrastructure for settlement activities.
The newspaper explained that the Israeli army has reduced the size of closed military training zones to legalize settlement outposts established illegally within them, while simultaneously opening the way for the expansion of existing settlements. At the same time, the army continues to petition the Israeli Supreme Court to evict Palestinian communities from these areas, claiming they obstruct military training exercises.
Without a doubt, in recent years, settlers, with the support of the army and official Israeli institutions, have managed to change the topographical map of the West Bank, by using military infrastructure and military confiscation orders to build new roads and connect outposts to large settlements in the context of a policy that includes modifying the boundaries of firing zones for settlement purposes, issuing military orders to build roads that serve outposts, in addition to -convert-ing abandoned military bases into new civilian settlements
It is known that the Israeli army has destroyed entire Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley and Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank over the past years, forcing their inhabitants to leave. Meanwhile, new settlement outposts have been established within the same areas, some with -dir-ect coordination from the Israeli political leadership. The newspaper revealed that the commander of the Israeli army s Central Command signed 8 orders in recent months to amend the boundaries of firing zones in the West Bank, with the aim of legitimizing existing settlement outposts and allowing the expansion of others.
The newspaper also explained that military confiscation orders, supposedly for temporary security purposes, have become a central tool in serving the settlement project, particularly through the construction of bypass roads and security roads that serve settlements and outposts and restrict Palestinian access to their agricultural lands.
According to data documented by the National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlement between 2023 - 2025, 140 military confiscation orders were issued under the heading of security needs, 81% of which were allocated to serve settlements and outposts, whether through the construction of security roads´-or-linking isolated outposts to existing settlements.
Occupation Government, through the Settlement -dir-ectorate of Minister Bezalel Smotrich, transferred broad powers from the Civil Administration to civilian bodies linked to the settlement project, including planning, construction, infrastructure, and linking outposts to electricity and roads. The army and the government also returned to the policy of -convert-ing abandoned military bases into civilian settlements.
Within the context, the Israeli army decided to confiscate land on the outskirts of Jenin, under the pretext of using it for military purposes. Several sources indicate that the Israeli army commander in the West Bank, Avi Blot, issued a military order to confiscate 7 dunams in the Jabriyat Neighborhood overlooking Jenin Refugee Camp. The land is classified as Area A under the Oslo Accords.
The establishment of the military base on the confiscated land aims to provide protection for settlements that the occupation authorities decided to establish a few kilometers east of this base, namely the settlements of Ganim and Kedem. In this regard, Dror Etkes, an Israeli activist who founded the Kerem Navot organization, which specializes in monitoring settlement activity, explained that the apartheid commander, the settler Avi Blot, as Etkes described him, signed this military order with the aim of establishing a new army base 200 meters from the borders of Jenin Refugee Camp.
The decision represents a step backward 30 years, to when the occupation army was stationed inside Palestinian cities in the West Bank. He indicated that the occupation army is returning to control the entire northern West Bank through the use of unrestrained violence. Etkes explained that the establishment of the military base on confiscated land aims to protect 2 settlements evacuated in 2005 as part of the disengagement plan, which the occupation government recently decided to rebuild. He added, only a sick and deranged society would allow an elected government to do such destructive and insane things, with its money, its future, and the blood of its sons and daughters who are sent to secure these terrorist settlement dens, and who will pay with their lives.
Last week, the occupation forces began demolishing dozens of industrial and commercial facilities in the Al-Mushtal area of Al-Eizariya town, affecting about 20 industrial and commercial facilities in Al-Eizariya. The demolition took place despite a precautionary order prohibiting the demolition of shops until mid-May. However, the occupation forces continued to carry out the demolitions while firing stun grenades and tear gas at the citizens.
The occupation authorities had notified about 50 citizens a few days earlier of the need to evacuate their shops and commercial establishments in the Al-Mushtal area at the main entrance to the town, in preparation for implementing previous demolition notices issued against them in August 2025. The demolition of these establishments comes within the context of a plan to implement the dangerous settlement project known as Fabric of Life, which represents the practical implementation of the Israeli annexation plan for the area called E1, with the aim of creating geographical contiguity between the settlement of Ma ale Adumim and occupied Jerusalem.
A move that lead to the swallowing up of about 3% of the area of the West Bank to be officially annexed within the Greater Jerusalem plan, and preventing Palestinians from using the main Route No. 1 and confining them to an underground tunnel near the Al-Za im Military Checkpoint, while the surface road is allocated exclusively to settlers. This is in addition to isolating the communities of Jabal al-Baba, Wadi al-Jamal, and the town of Al-Eizariya.
It clearly means that the occupation authorities have begun new practical steps to implement the E1 settlement project through demolition notices, a move aimed at separating the northern West Bank from its south and deepening the isolation of Jerusalem within a settlement plan considered one of the most dangerous Israeli projects in the West Bank. Such demolition orders target supermarkets, clothing and shoe stores, restaurants, barbershops, and tobacco and shisha shops, providing livelihoods for about 150 families.
The St. Yves Society - the Catholic Center for Human Rights - filed an urgent petition with the Israeli Supreme Court and obtained an immediate injunction temporarily freezing the demolitions. The petition raises fundamental legal questions about the authority of the occupation authorities to carry out the demolitions, especially since any claim of lack of permits for these establishments legally presupposes the issuance of official notices and granting shop owners the opportunity to submit licensing applications and objections in accordance with Jordanian law applicable in the area.
The petition also aimed to buy time to give shop owners a genuine opportunity to confront the plan related to the so-called “Fabric of Life Road,” for which the demolition orders are likely linked to its construction and expansion.
Alongside the resumption of work on the E1 settlement project, Israel s Ch. 4 reported that the so-called land ownership rights of the Beit El settlement council near Ramallah have been settled. Following this move, decades after the settlement s establishment, a detailed plan to build 1,200 new housing units as a first phase will be advanced. The plan includes infrastructure development alongside the housing units, specifically doubling the number of roads leading to the settlement to accommodate significant population growth.
According to the channel, the strategic goal is to transform Beit El from a settlement into a city. Bezalel Smotrich welcomed this step, describing it as historic. He added, We continue to create a revolution on the ground. Land regulation in Beit El is a moral and national duty finally being fulfilled without further legal delays. We are building, developing, and consolidating our control over our ancestral land. This is the ideal Zionist response to all those who try to weaken us"
In a move clearly indicate the annexation policy, the Knesset plenum approved in its first reading a bill to establish an Israeli Antiquities Authority to oversee antiquities and archaeological sites in the occupied West Bank. An Israeli antiquities organization asserted that the bill doesn’t protect antiquities, but rather transforms them into a political tool against Palestinians, used to advance the annexation plan for the West Bank.
According to the bill, the Israeli Antiquities Authority will be exclusively responsible for all heritage and antiquities matters in the area. Its jurisdiction will include archaeological excavations, their management, and law enforcement. The powers of the Antiquities Officer, currently appointed by the Civil Administration of the Israeli army, will be transferred to the Authority, and its jurisdiction will extend to Areas B and C.
For its part, the Israeli human rights organization Emek Shaveh, which advocates for cultural and heritage rights and opposes the use of heritage and archaeological sites as political tools, asserted that the bill doesn’t protect antiquities. Rather, it transforms antiquities and heritage into a political tool that works against the local population and is used to advance the annexation of the West Bank. The organization emphasized that “the bill is flawed and contradicts international law, the political agreements signed by Israel, and professional ethics.
On another level, EU foreign ministers decided last Tuesday to impose sanctions on four settlement organizations linked to violence, terrorism, and the displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank. The organizations targeted by the sanctions are Amana, Hashomer Yosh, Regavim, and Nahala. In addition to these organizations, the EU also decided to impose sanctions on 3 settlers, who lead those entities: Meir Deutsch, CEO of Regavim, Avichai Suissa, who heads Hashomer Yosh and Daniella Weiss, who leads Nahala.
The organizations sanctioned are: Amana, considered one of the most powerful settlement organizations financially and politically, with assets estimated at around NIS 600 million and an annual budget estimated at tens of millions of shekels. Amana is considered the main driver of illegal outposts and, in recent years, also illegal farms. Hashomer Yosh recruits hundreds of volunteers, mostly teenagers, to live in illegal agricultural outposts and participate in the systematic displacement of Palestinians from surrounding areas.
Yosh organizes the volunteers work, providing them and the farm owners with equipment, clothing, meals, and activities for the youth. With the help of these volunteers, a small group of settlers ‘usually one family and several young volunteers’ can establish a farm, seize thousands of dunams, and expel Palestinian farmers from their land. The third settlement entity is the Regavim movement, which works to promote settlement expansion and the displacement of Palestinians.
The Hebrew-language Regavim website states that the movement exerts pressure on all legal, governmental, and judicial systems through various means, while continuously monitoring their activities and performance in these areas. Simultaneously, the movement develops and promotes practical proposals and ideas, having submitted hundreds of petitions to the courts demanding the demolition of Palestinian buildings in the West Bank. This legal pressure has led to an overall increase in demolitions.
The movement also organizes groups of settlers to establish new outposts and openly boasts of its involvement in the creation of numerous illegal outposts, including the Aviatar outpost, where dozens of residents of the nearby village of Beita were killed´-or-wounded during protests against it, and the Givat Eitam outpost, from which several violent settler attacks against neighboring Palestinian residents have been launched.
List of Israeli Occupation and Settlers Assaults over the
Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Preventing farmers from plowing their lands in the town of Beit Iksa, northwest of occupied Jerusalem, while the Jerusalem Occupation Municipality forced Jalal Al-Taweel to demolish a residential room in the Al-Bustan Neighborhood of the town, under the pretext of building without a permit, and the Al-Faqih family to demolish their house under construction, after receiving a notice from the municipality ordering its demolition in the Shuafat Refugee Camp, north of occupied Jerusalem.
Hebron:
- Storming the archaeological site of Tell Ma in, east of Yatta, and attacked farmers, chased shepherds and severely beaten farmer Moh’d Abdul Hamid Hamamdeh while he was harvesting his crops, causing him bruises.
- Storming Khallat Farra, west of Yatta, confiscated a vehicle and a water tanker belonging to a local resident and detained his wife for hours. Meanwhile, a man and his child were injured when settlers attacked them in the village of Shuweik, south of Hebron. In Masafer Yatta
- Attacking a vehicle carrying several Palestinians with stones near Khirbet al-Fakhit in Masafer Yatta, shattered its windows. They then attacked the passengers by spraying pepper spray -dir-ectly in their faces, causing several to suffer severe suffocation and skin irritation, and then they were taken to a hospital for treatment.
- Chasing shepherds and farmers in the areas of Um Qubur, Wadi al-Jawaya, and Rujum A ali, forced them to leave their lands. They also broken and uprooted more than 20 olive saplings belonging to Ismail al-Adra, in addition to damaging a large number of others after releasing livestock into them in the Rajoum A la area.
- Attacking citizens and severely beaten Ghassan Zalloum and his son Salah, caused them bruises in the Beit Einun area, east of Hebron.
- Constructing a settlement road linking the settlements of Kiryat Arba, Metzad, Kisan, and Tekoa, reaching the Dead Sea area, as part of settlement expansion projects in the In the Qanan Niyas area, which falls under the lands of the towns of Sa ir and Shuyukh, south of Hebron, an actions that threaten thousands of dunams of agricultural land.
Ramallah:
- Constructing a settlement road between the villages of Al-Mughayyir and Khirbet Abu Falah in the Si a mountainou, located between the two villages. This is part of an effort to seize more Palestinian land to connect several settlement outposts in the area.
- Setting fire to a vehicle and spray-painted racist slogans on house walls in the Abu Falah village.
- Carrying out a provocative raid on the area surrounding Palestinian homes, while in the village of Kafr Malik, others stole about 80 sheep in the town of Abwein.
- Establishing a new settlement outpost in the Jisr al-Khalla area, near the town of Rammun, and have erected mobile homes. It was stated that the attempts to seize the Jisr al-Khalla area aim to launch terrorist attacks against the residents and forcibly displace them.
- Killing a 16 years old Youssef Ali Youssef Kaabneh and injured 4 others by rubber-coated metal bullets during an attack by dozens of armed settlers, under the protection of the Israeli army, on Palestinian lands and properties in the villages of Sinjil, Jaljulia, and Abwein, north of Ramallah. Local sources confirmed that dozens of armed settlers attacked homes and property in these villages, chased shepherds, and stole their sheep and agricultural equipment.
- Attacking homes on the outskirts of Jaljulia, stolen sheep and agricultural equipment.
Nablus:
- Setting fire to the home of Moh’d Khalil in the village of Lubban-Sharqiya.
- Attacking Palestinian homes with stones in the Wadi al-Hajj Issa area in the villages of Jurish and Aqraba. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that its crews treated 2 injuries: a pregnant woman, 35 and another woman, 65 sustained.
- Erecting a tent on land in the Masoudiya area and released their sheep into agricultural fields, damaging crops in the Burqa town.
- Expanding an outpost in the Jabal Bayzid area of the Beit Umar village.
- Storming the Joseph s Tomb in the eastern part of Nablus, under the protection of Israeli occupation forces who closed off the area. The settlers performed Talmudic rituals and prayers jointly by more than 5,000 settlers, including Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and the Knesset members.
Salfeet:
- Establishing a new outpost on land belonging to the town of Deir Istiya, erecting two caravans on land belonging to the Islamic Waqf in the Al-Maghsala area west of the town. Simultaneously, they bulldozed an area of land and laid a water pipe from the settlement of Revava to the new outpost, passing through Palestinian-owned olive groves.
- Working to establish an outpost south of the bypass road of the town of Bruqin, about 100 m. from the Bruqin Girls and Boys Basic Schools and about 50 meters from Palestinian homes. This road connects the settlements of Bruchin and Bedu el, which are built on land belonging to the town.
- Destroying the power line supplying the Al-Nasba area in the town of Yasuf and placed iron spikes along the road in the area, posing a danger to residents and vehicles.
Jenin:
- Attacking agricultural lands on the outskirts of the village of Raba and broke several olive trees. Noting that the occupation army continues its bulldozing operations on the Jabal Masalma, surrounding the village, with the aim of constructing settlement roads.
- Deciding to seize dozens of dunams of land belonging to the village of Zabda. Local sources reported that the occupation army issued a military order to seize an estimated 61,652 dunams of the village s land, under the pretext of using it for military purposes. The order is effective from the date of its signing, May 12, 2026 - 2028.
Qalqilia:
- Demolishing more than 50 residential and agricultural structures in the Arab Khouli community, east of the Kafr Thulth town, more than 2 months after forcibly displacing its residents at gunpoint. The mayor of Kafr Thulth, Jihad Awda, stated that settlers demolished more than 50 rooms and structures in the community, located east of the town, after forcing the residents to leave on Feb. 27 by force of arms and threats, despite their presence in the area for over 120 years. He explained that the demolished structures included homes, sheep and cattle pens, as well as furniture, equipment, solar panels, and a water line. He added that the area that was demolished and bulldozed is estimated at 30 dunams.
Jordan Valley:
- Releasing their livestock onto vast areas of rain-fed agricultural land in the Al-Hamma area of the northern Jordan Valley.
- Attacking residents of Khirbet Samra, and injured 3 of them
- Preventing Palestinians from repairing water lines damaged by Israeli military operations in the central Jordan Valley.
- Attacking shepherds in Khirbet Samra in the northern Jordan Valley, assaulted them and stolen sheep. Settlers also forced a 7 member family of Ibrahim Suleiman Ka abneh to leave their land west of the Al-Auja village.

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