Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports expanding and formalizing settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, Israeli media reported recently.

 

Outposts are communities established without official approval from the Israeli government, differing from official settlements, although many were built with some form of government assistance.

 

The Israeli government has a process to retroactively legalise some outposts, often by reclassifying them as new settlements or neighborhoods of existing settlements.

 

A significant number of the newer outposts are "farming" or "herding" outposts, which, despite having few residents, take control of vast areas of land for grazing and agriculture, impacting Palestinian access and movement.

 

The daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the information on Netanyahu’s backing of outposts was obtained from the summary of the premier’s discussion in the National Security Council in early November regarding educational tools to confront the violence of the “Hilltop Youth” group in the West Bank.

 

Hilltop Youth is an extremist right-wing settler group active in seizing Palestinian land and carrying out attacks on civilians and their property in the West Bank.

 

The official document “shows that Netanyahu supported the continued operation of these unofficial outposts, which receive government backing and are promoted by right-wing ministers as a tool to prevent Palestinian activity in Area C, which constitutes about 60 per cent of the West Bank and is fully under Israeli control,” the paper said.

 

According to the document, the prime minister said that “the certified and supervised farms are a positive and necessary response to preserve Area C and to counter Palestinian activity there.”

 

Government officials that attended the meeting reported that Netanyahu also instructed ministries to accelerate the legal regulation of the settlement outposts.

 

Most of the grazing lands used by the settlement outposts are allocated to them by the Civil Administration, the arm of Israel’s Defense Ministry in the Palestinian territories, the newspaper said.

 

“The government has been working for years to formalize them, and this sector has grown to a point that they contain 70 to 100 sites, including more than 15 established since the start of the Gaza war on October 8, 2023,” it added.

 

However, while successive governments have provided security and funding to West Bank outposts, they were built without the necessary permits, making them illegal under Israeli law.

 

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also oversees civilian affairs in the West Bank, and Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock, both on the far right, have directed tens of millions of shekels to the farms, according to the paper.

 

The funds have gone to security measures and mobile dwelling structures.

 

“Government officials view the outposts as a tool to counter Palestinian expansion in the West Bank amid renewed international pressure for a future Palestinian state,” the daily said.

 

Smotrich praised Netanyahu over his reported support for farming outposts in the West Bank and thanked the prime minister “for supporting the revolution we are carrying out in Judea and Samaria, among other things through the establishment of 132 outposts that protect 700,000 dunams [173,000 acres] from illegal Arab encroachment.”

 

“Together, we will kill the idea of a Palestinian state and ensure that Jews will be able to live and move about in safety everywhere,” he concluded.

 

On his part, Netanyahu has led an unprecedented drive to expand control of the West Bank , approving more than 50,000 housing units and over 50 new Israeli communities since late 2022.

 

The Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now estimates that more than half a million illegal settlers live in West Bank settlements.

 

Rights groups also argue that settlers have been using the farming outposts to take over additional land, while violently intimidating neighboring Palestinians.

 

Moreover , continued expansion of outposts, conducted in public with seemingly few legal repercussions, and the violence have cemented a fearful status quo for their Palestinian neighbors. Hundreds of Bedouin families have fled their homes due to repeated attacks.

 

The Israeli army has escalated its attacks in the West Bank since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.

 

More than 70,125 Palestinians have since been killed, and 171,015 others injured in attacks by the army and illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied territory.

 

During last October’s olive harvest, settlers across the territory launched an average of eight attacks daily, according to the United Nations humanitarian office, the most since it began collecting data in 2006.

 

The attacks continued in November, with the UN recording at least 136 more by Nov. 24.

 

Settlers burned cars, desecrated mosques, ransacked industrial plants and destroyed cropland. Israeli authorities have done little beyond issuing occasional condemnation of the violence.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the attackers as a minority that did not represent most settlers in the West Bank, where settlements are considered illegal by most of the international community.

 

As of late 2024 and into 2025, there are estimates of approximately 200 to 224 Israeli outposts in the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem.

 

These outposts are considered illegal under Israeli law (unless later "legalized" by the government) and a violation of international law.

 

The year 2024 saw a significant surge in new outpost establishments, with some reports noting as many as 60 new outposts in that year alone.

 

All settlements and outposts in the occupied Palestinian territories are considered illegal under international law, a position upheld by the International Court of Justice and most of the international community.

 

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.