• Expansion of illegal Israeli settlements has rapidly accelerated under the far-right Netanyahu government, which has overseen an almost 40% increase in officially recognized settlement in just over two year
• Recent statements from senior ministers are fueling fears of a possible Israeli plan to formally annex the occupied West Bank in violation of international law

ISTANBUL 

“Israel must abide by the International Court of Justice’s ruling and cease immediately all new settlement activities, evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory and make reparations for the damage caused by decades of illegal settlement.”

This March statement from the UN’s top human rights official sums up the world’s position on Israel’s settlement policy, which has – and continues to – transform the map of historic Palestine, steadily eroding Palestinian land, rights, and sovereignty.

Today, the UN, Israeli and global rights groups, and international law experts all agree on the illegality of the vast network of settlements and outposts, which they say is backed by the Israeli state.

These illegal settlements and structures, experts say, have fragmented Palestinian communities into isolated enclaves, displacing countless families, and entrenching a system of Israeli control and apartheid that undermines any genuine prospect for a just and lasting peace.  

1882-1903: Origins and the First Aliyah

According to official Israeli records, the First Aliyah, from 1882–1903, brought an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 Jewish immigrants, primarily from Eastern Europe and Yemen.

They established agricultural villages such as Rishon LeZion, Petah Tikvah, and Zikhron Ya’akov with the backing of early Zionist movements, including Hovevei Zion and Bilu.

Though modest in scale, these farming colonies laid the institutional and ideological foundations for the broader illegal Israeli settlement policy.  

1917-1948: British Mandate era and state-backed settlement

During the British Mandate, the 1917 Balfour Declaration accelerated Jewish immigration, according to data from the British National Archives.

The Second and Third Aliyah waves, infused with socialist Zionist ideals, built kibbutzim and moshavim. Organizations such as the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund coordinated systematic land seizures, often from absentee Arab landowners, according to the UN.  

Post‑1948 and pre‑1967 settlement

Following the creation of Israel in 1948, over 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their lands and homes, in what Palestinians call the Nakba, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic.

This led to the West Bank and East Jerusalem coming under Jordanian administration until the 1967 Six‑Day War, according to the UN.

Israeli settlement activity during this period was largely confined within the state’s post‑1948 borders, although long‑term settlement planning persisted.  

1967-1983: Occupation and the first settlement boom

The 1967 war marked the beginning of Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.

By 1970, the first major post‑war settlement, Kfar Etzion, had been re‑established, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

From 1977, under the Likud government, construction accelerated through religious‑nationalist movements such as Gush Emunim.

Between 1977 and 1983, the settler population in the West Bank increased more than fivefold, and the number of settlements tripled.  

1993-2005: Oslo era and controlled expansion

The Oslo II Accords of 1995 partitioned the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C.

Area C, which makes up nearly 61% of the territory and hosts nearly all settlements, remained under full Israeli civil and security control.

Despite peace efforts, settler numbers rose from approximately 250,000 in 1993 to around 380,000 by the early 2000s, according to a 2001 UN report, while several unauthorized outposts also emerged during this period.  

Israeli settlements in Gaza before 2005

Israel began establishing settlements in the Gaza Strip in the early 1970s, most of them concentrated in the Gush Katif bloc.

At their peak, about 8,000-9,000 settlers controlled approximately 20% of Gaza’s land, despite a Palestinian population exceeding 1.3 million, according to a 2005 UN report.

In August 2005, under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral disengagement plan, Israel evacuated all 21 settlements in Gaza and four smaller ones in the West Bank, compensating settlers and demolishing their homes.  

2020-2025: Netanyahu era surge

UN reports confirmed that in 2023, Israel approved a record 12,349 new housing units in West Bank settlements – excluding East Jerusalem – marking the single largest annual expansion since the Oslo Accords.

Between late 2023 and early 2025, more than 10,300 additional units were under construction, continuing at unprecedented growth rate, the reports showed.

According to various Israeli groups and reports from local media, including Channel 12, this surge is part of a broader settlement boom under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current far-right government, which has overseen an almost 40% increase in officially recognized settlements – from 128 to 178 – in just over two years.

In the same period, the government approved 41,709 settlement housing units, exceeding the total approved in the six years prior, from 2017 to 2022.

Independent analysis by the International Crisis Group and Israeli group Peace Now, citing UN figures, estimated that the total settler population in the occupied Palestinian territories had reached between 730,000 and 737,000 by 2024-2025, including roughly 500,000 in the West Bank and around 220,000 in East Jerusalem.

Parallel to this demographic expansion, Channel 12 data shows a sharp proliferation of outposts, with 214 illegal settler outposts recorded by the end of 2024.

At least 66 of these were established during Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza, representing an almost 300% increase compared to the previous two years. Many of these new outposts are on vast grazing farms, covering nearly 800 square kilometers (around 310 square miles), mostly in central and eastern parts of the West Bank.

Israeli domestic monitoring, including Peace Now data, confirms that by mid‑2025 there were 224 unauthorized outposts, including farm outposts, 28 of which were retroactively legalized under government policy.

The Netanyahu government also granted 13 settlements independent municipal status for the first time.

UN and Palestinian institutional reports further note that these settlement and outpost expansions, combined with road building, strategic land seizures – including 24,000 dunums recently declared “state land” – and record‑high demolitions of Palestinian structures, are entrenching Israeli control over vast areas of the West Bank and undermining any realistic prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state.

The International Court of Justice and the UN Security Council have repeatedly said that Israeli settlements are illegal and violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Israel disputes this interpretation, insisting the land is “disputed” rather than occupied. In July 2025, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared that “now is the time” to formally annex the occupied West Bank, framing the move as the culmination of years of policy planning.