Israel's Expulsion of Palestinian Communities in West Bank Hits Record High With U.S. Support
In recent weeks, there has been a flurry of activity around the project to expel Palestinians in the West Bank. The reason: a model that has been tested repeatedly over the past two years is proving remarkably successful.
As absurd as it may sound, it seems that all you need to expel a small Palestinian village are a tarp, some livestock, and a few indoctrinated teens. This grocery list, readily available throughout the West Bank, is joined by one critical and secret ingredient: state support.
About two weeks ago, 150 residents of Mughayyir al-Deir, a Bedouin community, fled their homes after an outpost was established just a few meters from their village. Their departure marked the latest in a string of Palestinian communities that once existed and are now gone.
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Days after the expulsion, settler Elisha Yered, one of the most prominent far-right activists today, published a column on the religious-nationalist news site Arutz Sheva. The title: "The enemy stronghold that fell exposed the magnitude of the achievement brought by the hilltops."
Yered's column included a map illustrating this achievement. It marked 37 hilltop outposts that together form a "Jewish continuum" stretching from the Israeli settlement of Hamra in the Jordan Valley to Kfar Adumim near Jerusalem. The total area covered by this "continuum," according to the map, was 381,000 dunams (94150 acres).
Elisha Yered in 2023.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
Months ago, a researcher of West Bank settlements created a mirror-image map showing that in the same area, 16 Palestinian communities had been expelled. In total, the researcher counted 78 families and communities that have been displaced from the West Bank since 2022 – seven before the war, and 71 since it began.
Fitting for the current political climate, Yered's column is a clear example of how extremist settlers no longer feel the need to conceal their intentions. "The major new discovery was that with persistence and determination, it is possible not only to defend parts of our homeland not yet stolen," he wrote, "but also to remove the enemy from areas he had already invaded and, brazenly, lived in for decades under the cover of Israeli neglect."
"Not only settling the land, but the second part of the commandment as well – conquering and bequeathment," he added. As for claims that this amounts to a "third Nakba," Yered asserted that this was not an exaggeration.
One claim echoed in Yered's column and frequently repeated by settlers about the displaced shepherding communities is that the Palestinian Authority generously funds them. In reality, the PA is in dire financial straits and struggles even to pay its employees' full salaries.
Settlers in Mughayyir al-Deir in May.Credit: Naama Grynbaum
Displaced communities often express frustration over the lack of support from the PA and its inability to protect them. One of the main reasons these communities leave is economic collapse, driven by settlers restricting their access to grazing land.
During a visit with a recently expelled family, one member bitterly remarked that the only support he was offered if he returned to his home was hay. "How am I supposed to protect my children with hay?" he asked.
The rapid collapse of Palestinian shepherding communities in Area C (the area fully controlled by Israel per the Oslo Accords), in the face of expanding settler farms and hilltop outposts, reflects their position as the weakest link in both the Israeli and Palestinian political hierarchies.
Time and again, their inability to defend themselves is laid bare when Palestinians are arrested after trying to protect their own homes. Initial arrests are often carried out by settler-soldiers or by soldiers acting on the orders of the local security coordinator, who is also a settler. Only rarely – and only when visual evidence supports their claims – do military courts acknowledge the possibility that Palestinians may have acted in self-defense.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Beirut in May.Credit: Hassan Ammar/AP
The deep inequality embedded in Israel's occupation of the West Bank is nothing new. But under the current government, and especially since the start of the war in Gaza, it has become dramatically more blatant.
One example came last month during a Knesset subcommittee hearing titled "Securing shepherds in Judea and Samaria," chaired by far-right lawmaker Zvi Succot.The speakers were a who's who of settlers from the hilltop and farm outposts. They spoke of the challenges and risks they face, and proudly claimed that the settler farm outposts now control (or "guard," as they put it) some 700,000 dunams (173,000 acres) of land in the West Bank.
Among the participants was Yishai Merling, a former head of the government-funded World Zionist Organization's Settlement Division and currently an adviser to the defense minister on settlement affairs. In the past, this role was crucial in shaping the Defense Ministry's policy toward settlers, prior to the establishment of Bezalel Smotrich's settlements administration within the ministry.
"The State of Israel and the IDF have significantly changed their methods in recent years. You can see it every day on the farms, and you can feel it," Merling said at the hearing. He described the outposts as "the realization of the Zionist vision" and praised the support they receive from the IDF, the Central Command, the Settlement Division, the Defense Ministry and the Settlement and National Missions Ministry.
Finance Minister Bezaelel Smotrich in the Knesset in March.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
The state's contribution to the outposts is plainly visible on the ground. Recently, the Settlements Ministry and the Settlement Division announced that they had distributed all-terrain Ranger vehicles and security equipment, including thermal drones and night-vision gear, to 19 farm outposts in the Jordan Valley.
This followed a similar announcement in April regarding outposts in the South Hebron Hills, as part of a 75 million shekel budget allocated for outpost security. Land allocations for grazing and road construction are also key pillars of state support.
The current pace of developments in the West Bank is fueled by the unmistakable backing of Trump, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. This mindset has fully permeated the Israeli military. In the past, enforcement against outposts was rare, but today, it is practically nonexistent, since it requires approval from Smotrich himself.
On the rare occasions enforcement does happen, it's usually because a particularly resolute brigade commander acts swiftly, believing the outpost endangers its residents, or because a regional council head supports removal for his own reasons. Even then, the outposts are rebuilt the very same day.
Palestinian Bedouin shepherds, of the Jahalin community, herd their flock in an area near the West Bank Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, on Monday.Credit: Mahmoud Illean/AP
Even in the past, the owners of farm outposts were occasionally invited to events with the army, which held tours and maintained contact with them. Today, that relationship is fully formalized, as exemplified by Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, who was quoted in the New York Times as saying the farm outposts are legal. The IDF Spokesperson's Unit, which is subject to legal review, later clarified his statement.
Regarding enforcement, not only is the West Bank police district under the influence of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and the command of his close ally Moshe Pinchi, but its central unit, responsible for addressing nationalist crimes, has no permanent commander, after its previous head was placed under investigation for bribery.
Although the situation in the West Bank often feels stagnant, recent weeks mark a critical turning point. The expulsion of the Mughayyir al-Deir community was the culmination of a process. The outpost settlers have openly stated their goal: the ethnic cleansing of Area C.
The Israeli military, for its part, claimed when the outpost was established that it did not encroach on the Bedouin residential area – thus choosing to blind the public and define the situation solely by the settlers' perspective: a tarpaulin, some sheep, and the few meters separating the outpost from the village homes. A "neighborly dispute," as the army sometimes calls what is happening in this so-called "battle for Area C" being waged by the settlers.
Israeli security forces search a mobile clinic at the entrance to the village of al-Tuwani in the Masafer Yatta area in the occupied West Bank on Monday.Credit: John Wessels/AFP
And so, following the expulsion of Mughayyir al-Deir, more settlers began attempting to establish new outposts using a similar model. Settlers have already begun work on a new outpost near the village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the Jordan Valley and in the village of Khalat al-Daba in Masafer Yatta, occupying a residential cave in the latter and grazing sheep around the clock. When the cave's resident filed a complaint, police arrested him on suspicion of filing a false report. The settlers later moved on to try their luck near the village of Susiya.
Since the war in Gaza began, the Israeli army was fully aware of the growing phenomenon of community expulsions from Area C and of the settlers' intentions. In recent months, the army's conduct has shifted from indifference and willful blindness to full cooperation, driven by a commitment to the goals and values of the Smotrich-Ben-Gvir government.