'The settlers are in control': How the West Bank is being ethnically cleansed

“'The settlers are in control': How the West Bank is being ethnically cleansed Submitted by Peter Oborne on Fri, 05/15/2026 - 11:04 Armed, funded and openly endorsed by Israel's far-right government, settlers are terrorising Palestinians with impunity The 50km journey from Ramallah north to Nablus in the occupied West Bank used to take an hour. Israeli checkpoints now mean it can take half a day or more. It’s Friday morning and I’m on a bus full of students and young families going to stay with relatives for the weekend. We swing left to join Highway 60, which runs along the ancient route from Hebron in the south to Jenin and Nazareth to the north. In Ottoman times it was known as the “route of the thieves”, with robbers lying in wait for unwary travellers. Today the thieves are Israeli settlers. Were Palestine to become its own state, Highway 60 would become a key piece of national infrastructure. But now every hundred metres or less is an Israeli flag. On the bus there’s a discussion about who planted the flags. All agree they weren’t there a year ago. Beside the flags are occasional posters depicting a rabbi in a black coat, with a protruding beard under his black homburg hat. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson died 30 years ago, but to many settlers he is a living presence. His followers believe that all the land of historical Israel belongs to the Jews. Settlers paste his emblem - a blue crown against a yellow background above a Hebrew word meaning messiah - in Palestinian villages and at crossroads. An Israeli soldier at an army post bearing a poster of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson at a junction south of Nablus in 2021 (Menahem Kahana/AFP) The rabbi’s followers believe the arrival of the messiah is imminent. Groups of settlers congregate along the road. Some carry machine guns. The women wear long woven dresses. Many settlers, especially those in remote outposts, view Palestinians with hatred and contempt. We pass Turmus Ayya, which is under regular attack . Rampaging settlers, many armed, destroy crops, burn cars and houses, wreck agricultural machinery. We pass close to Shilo, a religious settlement named after the ancient biblical city of Shiloh. A young mother sitting near me on the bus shivers: “It’s the one that’s killing everybody. The head of the snake.” All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, according to a ruling by the International Court of Justice in 2024. Many Shilo settlers are American Israelis, while many American Palestinians live in Turmus Ayya. Back in the United States they might be neighbours and friends. In the West Bank, the Shilo settlers are intent on driving out or killing the Palestinians and seizing their land. We pass along the road to Beita, a village that has come under repeated murderous assault since a settlement outpost called Evyatar (translation: God is great) was launched with the support of the radical settler movement Nachala which has received funding from organisations in the US. I have visited Beita several times. Every Friday the youth of Beita march to protect their land. They mostly throw stones and set light to tyres. But they don’t pose any realistic danger to settlers or well-armed Israeli soldiers. Sixteen of them had been shot dead when I last visited in September 2024, with many others injured. An American-Turkish dual national, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi , was one of the martyrs, targeted by an IDF soldier with a shot to the head. The direct route to Nablus should pass through Huwwara , the scene of a notorious settler pogrom three years ago. Today Huwwara is cut off by one of the ubiquitous barrier gates installed across the West Bank to enable the occupying Israeli authorities to block off towns and villages. The bus driver swings left and up the hill. We are now close to Yitzhar, an especially violent settlement known for its motto “expel or kill”, which has been graffitied on homes and walls in Palestinian villages. A settler website includes a photograph of a flag with Rabbi Schneerson's emblem waving above a military outpost in Yitzhar. Under the flag the text states that it is there to remind “the residents of the Arab villages of their true destiny - to be slaves to the children of Israel”. Two white caravans The passenger next to me points to two white caravans parked at the top of a hill. “They weren’t there last week. Next week they will have a small house. Then another. “They will come down the hill. They will seize livestock. They will take the land. They are armed. If we resist, they will kill us. They will invade our houses.” The Old Testament prophet Elijah in the Book of Kings speaks of “a little cloud no bigger than a man’s hand”. Hard to detect in the distance, those two white caravans signal the inevitable destruction of Palestinian homes and livelihoods. A hilltop settlement south of Jenin in April 2026 (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP) These tiny unregistered outposts are appearing all over the West Bank. According to the International Crisis Group, 94 were planted last year. They start as a handful of armed fanatics in mobile homes. Over time they grow, gain formal recognition, become permanent. Israelis build their settlements on hilltops. Deeply rooted Palestinian villages favour gently sloping terrain on the lower slopes where they are closer to agricultural land and can make the best use of springs and natural breezes. “The settlers are in control,” remarks a bus passenger. “They rule the West Bank now. The army does what they tell them. “It was better when the army was in charge. They were brutal. But they had rules. They were more predictable.” Today settlers enjoy near total impunity from the law and can rely on military support if Palestinians resist. They descend from their hilltops and do what they want. Burn. Loot. Steal. Kill. Palestinians are the object of a vicious programme of organised ethnic cleansing. 'My mother was a Holocaust survivor, and what I saw reminded me of the events that happened against Jews in the last century' - Tamir Pardo, former Mossad director According to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem , Israel has driven out 59 Palestinian communities, home to more than 4,000 people, since 7 October 2023. Many more live in daily fear. In addition, B’Tselem reports, the IDF has driven more than 32,000 people from their homes in refugee camps, with many houses deliberately destroyed. According to the United Nations, more than 1,000 Palestinians, including 200 children, have been killed by Israel during this period. Tamir Pardo , a former director of Mossad, visited the West Bank last month. Afterwards he remarked: “My mother was a Holocaust survivor, and what I saw reminded me of the events that happened against Jews in the last century.” He added: “What I saw today made me feel ashamed to be Jewish.” While the new wave of ferocious settler attacks has been fuelled in part by a thirst for vengeance after the 7 October Hamas-led attacks of 2023, the fundamental explanation lies in the political pact struck between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right religious parties in late 2022. After failing to secure a majority in the Knesset, Netanyahu entered into coalition with Itamar Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist parties. In return for their support, Netanyahu appointed Smotrich as finance minister and awarded him control of the West Bank. This was a gross breach of international law. Israel has been the occupying power in the West Bank since it seized the territory from Jordanian control during the 1967 Arab-Israel war. Under international law any power must manage occupied territory through a military mechanism. There’s a logic here: any military occupation has a duty to govern in the interests of the people it occupies, and not the occupier. In order to hand over the West Bank to Smotrich, Netanyahu created a new body, the Settlement Administration. Israel’s Smotrich leads settler raid into Joseph’s Tomb in the occupied West Bank Read More » Though located for administrative reasons inside the Ministry of Defence, this new body is overseen and controlled by Smotrich, a civilian politician. This created a new legal and moral framework. As Peace Now, an Israeli NGO, points out , the Settlement Administration “is a body that is committed and by law to the interests of the state of Israel and its citizens”. Whereas the army had (in theory at least) an over-riding duty to act in the interests of Palestinians, the Settlement Administration serves only Israeli citizens. And not just any Israeli citizens: Israeli settlers. Smotrich, who himself lives in a settlement and has built his career standing up for violent settler interests, has used his powers to the full. In the almost 60 years since its occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel constructed approximately 150 settlements. Earlier this year the Israeli cabinet approved the construction of 34 new settlements, bringing the total approved by the Netanyahu coalition to 103. Meanwhile scores of irregular “outposts” are being approved, with ruinous consequences for Palestinians. Money and guns The settlers require guns, homes, agricultural machinery, drones, new roads and off-road vehicles as they drive Palestinian off their land. This programme of ethnic cleansing does not come cheap. Crucially, Smotrich is not just controller of the West Bank. As finance minister he has approved a substantial funding uplift in support of the settlers’ campaign. While Netanyahu’s straightened coalition government is cutting national budgets, it pours money into settlements. “This is daylight robbery of public funds to benefit a small group within the government’s base,” says Peace Now. When Middle East Eye visited Peace Now executive director Lior Amihai in his Tel Aviv office he told us that Smotrich had allocated seven billion shekels ($2.4bn) to a five-year plan for settlement roads, many of which are built on Palestinian-owned land. That’s 1.4bn shekels a year - or 30 percent of the national roads budget. This means that nearly a third of Israel’s intercity roads budget is being spent on just 300,000 settlers making up about three percent of the Israeli population. Experience shows that once roads are built the settler population increases exponentially, with local Palestinians driven out. A girl walks past Hebrew graffiti painted by settlers on the wall of a Palestinian school in the West Bank city of Nablus in April 2026 (Reuters) While Smotrich underwrites the settler project, his coalition partner (and political soulmate) Ben Gvir arms it. In January he approved personal gun licences in 18 illegal settlements to “enhance self-defence and increase personal security”. Settlers, all of whom are living illegally in the West Bank, have ready access to weapons ranging from M16 assault rifles to pistols and drones. It is no surprise that the United Nations recorded almost 2,000 settler attacks - approximately five a day - in 2025. Over the last three years the West Bank has become a lawless and terrifying place where not even Israelis are safe. Three weeks after MEE interviewed him in Tel Aviv, Peace Now’s Amihai was assaulted by settlers while leading a tour of the Jordan valley for Israeli left-wing activists. Footage of the event shows settlers hitting him before shoving him against the side of a vehicle and asking “Why did you bring Arabs here?” Such attacks on Israelis have become normalised. Human rights activist Aviv Tatarsky of the peace organisation Ir Amim told MEE how settlers attacked him last month in Deir Istiya, a small village 15km south of Nablus, after he intervened when farmers were assaulted. Tatarsky, like Amihai an Israeli citizen, told MEE that his assailants came from the ultra-orthodox Emmanuel (translation: God is with us) settlement. “They assaulted me, beat me with a plastic hose, hit me in the face,” he said. Tatarsky played down the attack, stressing that Palestinians endured much worse assaults on a daily basis. Nevertheless, he was forced to take a week off work. He told MEE: “We know their names. Where they live is known. We filed a complaint to the police, but have heard nothing back.” Even foreign media are now fair game for settlers as last July’s assault on a German TV crew and the detention of CNN journalists in March proves. Palestinians have no way of fighting back. “Anyone who throws stones gets shot dead,” says Jamal Juma, coordinator of the Stop the Wall campaign. The Palestinian Authority has 70,000 soldiers at its disposal, but they never come to the aid of threatened Palestinians. Instead they are deployed to help Israel police Palestinian resistance. One senior PA officer admits: “We are collaborators. We are under the orders of Israel. Anyone who denies this is a liar.” As the bus approached Nablus the tension finally eased. This ancient city, built in the first century CE by the Roman emperor Vespasian, comes under settler and IDF assault but on nothing like the same devastating scale as other major towns like Tulkarm in the east or Jenin in the north. It may not be safe for much longer. Symbol of s umud In February, Smotrich announced a shake-up of land registration law in the West Bank which will make it easier for Israelis to claim Palestinian land. Smotrich boasted: “We will continue to kill off the idea of a Palestinian state.” The main effect is expected be felt in the rural areas of the West Bank because it makes it far more difficult to prove ownership of the land. Most rural areas fall within Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control since the Oslo Accords which established the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s. Palestinians told MEE they feared the effect that the new mechanism demanding that Palestinians are compelled to prove ancient property rights could be applied to devastate cities like Nablus. They point to the example of Hebron where settlers have seized property in the heart of the city. Military forces were brought in to protect them and vast areas of the old city have been cleared of Palestinians. But the spirit of resistance remains. I witnessed this defiant endurance after I left Nablus to catch a bus to visit friends in the nearby village of Burqa. Like so many Palestinian villages Burqa is an ancient community that feels as if it has merged with the land that surrounds it. At its centre stand elegant Ottoman-era buildings, including an old church. The view to the south towards Nablus is magical, with rolling hills and olive trees. But on top of the hill above Burqa now looms Homesh, a radical settlement with a complicated history. Established on stolen Palestinian land in 1978, the settlers were evicted in 2005 as part of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan. But they never fully left. Palestinians were not given back their stolen land and settlers maintained a presence by building a yeshiva (religious school) on the site. Shmuel Wendy, manager of the Homesh Yeshiva, makes no secret of his ambition. In footage that can be viewed on YouTube he recently told supporters: "The nation of Israel demands to return to occupy, to take possession and to return to our holy land… it is just about going back to a place that belongs to us." His ambition includes the destruction of the Oslo Accords and any hope of a Palestinian state. Settlers from Homesh descend to Burqa several times a week to terrorise Palestinians. They steal cars, sheep and agricultural equipment. Two days before my visit they had swarmed through olive trees, setting them alight. But villagers told me that the settlers were afraid to enter the village itself. "We have placed a sign at the entrance of our village: ‘Stay away to be safe’. When they come into the village we send a message to all the men in Burqa to come out," one of them said. "People carry sticks. We attack. Once a week they come in and we drive them out." We walked up the hill through olive trees towards the Homesh settlement. We found an elderly farmer clearing land so that he could plant beans. He told us he was working his plot of land because “today is a Saturday, the Jewish holy day, and on other days we are afraid the settlers will come and kill us”. Burqa's Handala statue was destroyed by Israeli soldiers, but they were unable to remove the feet (Supplied) Mamoun, a retired social worker and teacher, invited MEE into his house for coffee. “Burqa has a long tradition of resistance,” he said. “We are educated. We have schools in Burqa. We know what happens if we lose our land. In our DNA we have loyalty to this country.” Mamoun, who fought in the first Intifada, proudly told MEE: “Shimon Peres came in his car to Burqa. He said that he hadn’t been attacked by any village except Burqa.” After coffee Mamoun took me to the memorial wall near the entrance to the village where the names of those who gave their lives for resistance are inscribed. Almost all Palestinians remember their martyrs in this way. “This wall is like a challenge,” said Mamoun. “We are continuing our resistance to Israeli attacks.” More than 70 names are recorded on the wall, dating back to the Arab revolt against British rule in 1936. The first 18 martyrs on the wall died fighting the British. Ten died during the Nakba. Others during the Black September uprising of 1970, and then during the first and second intifadas. The most recent martyr is 16-year-old Nidal Shaqnoubi. There's a gap for his name to be inscribed on the wall. Beside the wall of martyrs there used to stand a statue of Handala, a cartoon character who has become a symbol of steadfastness (sumud) for Palestinians. With his hands clasped and back turned, Handala refuses to face the world until Palestine is free. Mamoun recalls: “The soldiers came here and cut down Handala because they know that the symbol reminds our villagers to be awake.” Then he points downwards. Handala’s feet are still there. The soldiers couldn’t remove them. They remain fixed, obstinate, unyielding, immovable, stubbornly planted in Palestinian soil. Occupation News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:28 Update Date Override 0

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