JERUSALEM / ISTANBUL 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports a plan to expand and legalize settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, local media reported on Wednesday.

The daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the information 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% 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.

The paper said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Settlement Minister Orit Strock have significantly expanded government funding for the outposts, sending tens of millions of shekels from state funds over the past three years.

Due to the illegal status of the settlement outposts, government funds have been directed to mobile equipment and security elements that support maintaining their presence on grazing lands, it added.

“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.

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

Escalation

Separately, Israel’s public broadcaster KAN reported on Wednesday that “a security escalation” is expected in the occupied West Bank.

Last week, the Israeli army launched a large-scale military offensive in the northern West Bank that included the closure of the Palestinian villages and cities, widespread searches, confiscation of valuables, and home demolitions.

KAN, citing unnamed sources, claimed that the offensive in the northern West Bank “led to a significant rise in incitement on Palestinian social networks and the return of armed operatives to activity against Israel.”

The security establishment, according to the sources, “detected additional factors contributing to the deterioration, including the release of hundreds of detainees in previous prisoner-exchange deals and their return to the West Bank.”

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

More than 1,085 Palestinians have since been killed, and 10,700 others injured in attacks by the army and illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied territory.

Over 20,500 people have also been arrested.

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.