What are the Israeli settlements?
Israeli settlements are Israeli civilian communities in the Israeli-occupied territories (lands that were captured from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War). Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The latter two areas are governed under Israeli civil law but are considered to be under military occupation by the ...
Are Israeli settlements legal?
Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law. The last time settlement units were approved in October, the Biden administration released a similar statement, condemning continued settlement building publicly.
What is the settlement in Israel?
Israeli settlement, any community of Israeli Jews built after 1967 in the disputed territories captured by Israel in the Six-Day War. Since 2005, settlements have existed almost exclusively in the West Bank, with a handful in the Golan Heights; they were also once erected in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula.
Where is West Bank in Israel?
West Bank, Arabic Al-Ḍaffah al-Gharbiyyah, Hebrew Ha-Gadah Ha-Maʿaravit, area of the former British-mandated (1920–47) territory of Palestine west of the Jordan River, claimed from 1949 to 1988 as part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan but occupied from 1967 by Israel.
How many Israelis settled in Palestine?
Despite multiple UN resolutions, Israel has continued to appropriate Palestinian land and support at least 600,000 settlers living in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
What areas has Israel occupied since 1967?
The status of territories captured by Israel is the status of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula; all of which were captured by Israel over the course of the 1967 Six-Day War.
How many Israeli settlements are there?
Today they total around 400,000 and live in about 130 separate settlements (this doesn't include East Jerusalem, which we'll address in a moment). They have grown under every Israeli government over the past half-century despite consistent international opposition.
How many Palestinian homes have been demolished since 1967?
Since 1967, Israeli authorities have demolished 28,000 Palestinian homes. Each demolition has uprooted an entire household – quashing the dreams and hopes of 6,000 children and their families in the past 12 years.”
How much land has Palestine lost to Israel?
During and immediately following the state's creation in 1948, Israel expropriated approximately 4,244,776 acres of Palestinian land. In the process, more than 400 Palestinian cities and towns were systematically destroyed by Israeli forces or repopulated with Jews.
What land has Israel taken from Palestine?
More than 50 years ago, the state of Israel shocked the world when it seized the remaining Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, in a matter of six days.
Are there Israeli settlements in Gaza?
According to the report of the Security Council Commission established under resolution 446 (1979): "Between 1967 and May 1979, Israel has established altogether 133 settlements in the occupied territories, consisting of 79 in the West Bank, 29 in the Golan Heights, 7 in the Gaza Strip and 18 in the Sinai.
Who owned Israel before 1948?
In 1517, the Ottoman Empire conquered the region, ruling it until the British conquered it in 1917. The region was ruled under the British Mandate for Palestine until 1948, when the Jewish State of Israel was proclaimed in part of the ancient land of Israel.
When did Israel settle in Palestine?
1967When the guns fell silent in 1967, the Israeli state began building colonies, or settlements, for its Jewish Israeli citizens on Palestinian land it had just occupied. Settlements have become the hallmark of the Israeli colonial project in Palestine.
Does Israel destroy Palestinian homes?
Broadly speaking, the house demolitions can be classified as either administrative, punitive/dissuasive and as part of military operations. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions estimated that Israel had razed 49,532 Palestinian structures as of 2019.
Did Israel destroy Palestinian homes?
Critics condemned the late-night raid in one of several pending eviction orders in Sheikh Jarrah. JERUSALEM — Israeli police demolished a Palestinian home in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem early Wednesday, after a surprise overnight raid and the arrest of family members and protesters.
How many homes has Israel demolished?
More than 3,000 homes, hundreds of public buildings and private commercial properties, and vast areas of agricultural land have been destroyed by the Israeli army and security forces in Israel and the Occupied Territories in the past three and a half years.
What territories does Israel occupy?
The Occupied Territories, which include the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, are subject to the jurisdiction of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), with the division of responsibilities overlapping in much of the territory.
Does Israel still occupy the West Bank?
The Israeli occupation of the West Bank began on 7 June 1967, when Israeli forces captured and occupied the territory (including East Jerusalem), then held by Jordan, during the Six-Day War, and continues to the present day.
Does Israel still occupy the Golan Heights?
Since the Six-Day War of 1967, the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights has been occupied and administered by Israel, whereas the eastern third remains under the control of Syria.
What was Tel Aviv called before Israel?
Ahuzat BayitThe town was originally named Ahuzat Bayit. On 21 May 1910, the name Tel Aviv was adopted.
What is the history of Israeli settlements?
Interactive timeline: The history of Israeli settlements since 1967. Israeli settlements built on land occupied in the 1967 war are one of the most contentious and intractable issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli settlements undermine the Palestinian right to self-determination. [Getty]
Where is the new settlement in Israel?
Israel approves the first new settlement in the occupied West Bank for two decades in 2017 near the Palestinian city of Nablus. Later in 2017, Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital, effectively rejecting Palestinian claims to the city. There are now more than 200,000 Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem.
What did Pompeo say about the settlements?
On 18 November, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repudiates a 1978 State Department legal opinion that held that civilian settlements in the occupied territories are "inconsistent with international law," the latest in a series of Trump administration moves that weaken Palestinian claims to statehood. TimelineJS Embed.
What did the Israeli settlements undermine?
Israeli settlements undermine the Palestinian right to self-determination. [Getty] Soon after Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the June 1967 war, the government began establishing settlements in the newly captured occupied territory. Initially small in number, the settlements rapidly grew across ...
How did Israeli settlements undermine the Palestinian right to self-determination?
Critically, Israeli settlements undermine the Palestinian right to self-determination by limiting the possibility of a contiguous state, instead creating a series of disconnected enclaves throughout the West Bank. Below is a timeline of the settler movement in the Holy Land. Scroll to the bottom of the article for an interactive version.
When did Trump take over the Golan Heights?
With little resistance from a friendly Trump administration, Israel launches the largest settlement construction push in years, approving thousands of homes. In March 2019, Trump officially recognises Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, seized from Syria in 1967.
When did Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip?
Gaza withdrawal. In 2005, Israel's hard-line prime minister Ariel Sharon, a patron of the settler movement, unilaterally withdraws 8,500 settlers from the Gaza Strip. Since 1967, Israel had established over 21 Jewish settlements in the coastal territory. Over half of the Israeli public opposed the evacuation.
Where are the Israeli settlements?
Israeli settlements currently exist in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in the Syrian territory of the Golan Heights. East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have been annexed by Israel, so residents are treated equivalently to the rest of Israel under Israeli law.
What are the settlements in East Jerusalem?
East Jerusalem settlements (2006) Golan Heights settlements (1992) Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish ethnicity, built in violation of international law on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israeli settlements currently exist in ...
How many settlements were there in the Gaza Strip?
Before Israel's unilateral disengagement plan in which the Israeli settlements were evacuated, there were 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip under the administration of the Hof Aza Regional Council. The land was allocated in such a way that each Israeli settler disposed of 400 times the land available to the Palestinian refugees, and 20 times the volume of water allowed to the peasant farmers of the Strip.
What was the Allon Plan?
It implied Israeli annexation of major parts of the Israeli-occupied territories, especially East Jerusalem, Gush Etzion and the Jordan Valley. The settlement policy of the government of Yitzhak Rabin was also derived from the Allon Plan.
How was Kiryat Arba established?
According to a secret document dating to 1970, obtained by Haaretz, the settlement of Kiryat Arba was established by confiscating land by military order and falsely representing the project as being strictly for military use while in reality, Kiryat Arba was planned for settler use.
What territories did Israel control?
It took over the remainder of the Palestinian Mandate territories of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, from Jordan which had controlled the territories since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, which had held Gaza under occupation since 1949. From Egypt it also captured the Sinai Peninsula and from Syria it captured most of the Golan Heights, which since 1981 has been administered under the Golan Heights Law .
How does settlement affect the economy?
Settlement has an economic dimension, much of it driven by the significantly lower costs of housing for Israeli citizens living in Israeli settlements compared to the cost of housing and living in Israel proper. Government spending per citizen in the settlements is double that spent per Israeli citizen in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, while government spending for settlers in isolated Israeli settlements is three times the Israeli national average. Most of the spending goes to the security of the Israeli citizens living there.
How many Israeli colonies are there in the occupied Palestinian territories?
There are three main types of Israeli colonies in the occupied Palestinian territories, all of which involve seizing Palestinian land and are all illegal under international law.
When did Israel start a law to confiscate Palestinian property?
In 1950, Israel introduced the Absentee Property Law to confiscate the property of the 800,000 Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes between 1947 and 1949, due to the Nakba. The law encompassed those Palestinians who were displaced to the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, or to neighbouring countries.
What happened in 1948?
As European Jews began to colonise Palestine - many pushed by anti-Semitic persecution in Europe - the balance of land control between Palestinians and immigrant Jews shifted significantly.
How do they impact Palestinians?
Besides being built illegally on private and public Palestinian land, settlements impact the day-to-day life of Palestinians in many ways.
Why do settlements matter in the West Bank?
Why the locations of settlements matter. Settlements are scattered across the West Bank in a way that makes a contiguous Palestinian state impossible, while in Jerusalem the Israeli government has built settlements around the city to consolidate control over it.
How many Israelis live in Israel?
Today, between 600,000 and 750,000 Israelis live in these sizeable settlements, equivalent to roughly 11 percent of the total Jewish Israeli population. They live beyond the internationally recognised borders of their state, on Palestinian land that Israel occupied in 1967, comprising East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Why does Israel have a policy of demolition?
While building homes for settlers, Israel employs a policy of home demolitions to restrict the expansion of Palestinian communities on the pretext that homes were built without necessary permits, while refusing to issue them.
What are the Israeli settlements?
Israeli settlements are one of the core and most insidious issues in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Settlements are the most emblematic symbol of the discriminatory system that Palestinian people are facing on an ongoing basis since 1948. They have a devastating impact on Palestinians’ human rights, as well as on their social and economic well-being.
What is settlement in Israel?
In the context of the West Bank, the term “Israeli settlement” refers to civilian communities of Jewish people with Israeli citizenship. The size of these communities can vary from small villages to big towns. They can also take many different forms, such as rural, urban, community and cooperative settlements [1].
What is Israel's policy on building houses?
Israel has the practise of ordering the eviction of Palestinians from their houses in order to replace them with settlers [46], of demolishing Palestinian houses in order to build houses for settlers and of denying of building permits to Palestinians in order to maintain the “Jewishness” of an area .
What is the law that confiscates Palestinian property?
The legal mechanism that has been used by Israel in order to confiscate Palestinian properties for its own use is the Absentees’ Property Law . Under the law, “property” includes immovable and movable property, moneys, a vested or contingent right in property, goodwill and any right in a body of persons or in its management. The law states that the properties of any absentee [41] will be taken and transferred to the control of the Custodian for guardianship until a political solution for the refugee problem was reached. Although a theoretical possibility was recognized for absentees to acquire the property back after confiscation, this was impracticable in the majority of the cases [42]. The Absentee Property Law has also been used over the years as a tool by Israeli settler associations for the takeover of Palestinian owned properties in East Jerusalem [43].
How did settlements affect the West Bank?
Settlements have had the practical effect of dividing up and fragmenting the West Bank territory, affecting the demographic composition of the territory . By the end of 2017, 132 units of settlements and 106 outposts units were estimated inside the West Bank territory, Jerusalem excluded, with more than four hundred thousand settlers living inside [56]. This means that thirteen percent of the population living in the West Bank is composed of settlers. In addition, settlements have led to a lack of sovereignty over natural resources, such as land and water, as described above.
Where are the settlements in the West Bank?
Settlements have been built not only inside the West Bank Territory (including East Jerusalem) but also within the Syrian territory [2] in the Golan Heights. Those settlements that had had built in the Gaza Strip where removed in 2005 by a controversial decision of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon [3] . In the West Bank, settlements are mainly located in “Area C” [4], under the full Israeli civil administration and security control; they are partly built on Palestinian private lands.
When did Israel start settling in the West Bank?
In order to draw an historical context of Israeli settlements, we have to refer back to the year 1967, when as soon as Israel occupied the West Bank Territory after the Six-day War, the Knesset decided for the establishment of settlements, driven by the strategic concern of establishing a Jewish presence in the Region. The first one that was built was the Kfar Etzion settlement, in the Judean Hills. At the beginning, settlers establishing in the West Bank were driven by a strong ideological mission to re-settle the hills of the ancient Judea and Samaria as biblical holy places.
How many settlement outposts were there in the West Bank?
In addition, there were approximately 110 “settlement outposts” located throughout the West Bank. The outposts do not have official government recognition, although many of them were established with governmental assistance. Outposts are generally smaller than recognized settlements.
How many settlers are there in the West Bank?
There are an estimated 622,670 settlers in the West Bank.
How much did the settlement population increase in 2017?
According to the CBS, the annual growth rate of the settler population (excluding East Jerusalem) in 2017 was 1.75 times greater than that of the population in Israel: an annual increase of 3.5% in the settlements versus 2% in Israel.
What are outposts in Israel?
Outposts are generally smaller than recognized settlements. Eleven large Israeli neighborhoods were built in areas that Israel annexed to the Jerusalem Municipality after 1967. These neighborhoods are also considered settlements under international law.
How long has Israel been forcing Palestinians off their land?
For the last 50 years, Israel has been forcing thousands of Palestinians off their land, occupying and illegally using it to create settlements that exclusively house Jewish Israeli settlers. Entire Palestinian communities have been displaced by these settlements.
How many Palestinians were tried in Israel in 1993?
Between 1990 and 2006, more than 150,000 Palestinians were brought before Israeli military courts. In one year alone, in 1993, 15,300 Palestinians were tried before military courts. Virtually all cases heard by Israeli military courts in the occupied West Bank end in conviction.
What is the Israeli land grab?
Israel’s policy of constructing and expanding illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land is one of the main driving forces behind the mass human rights violations resulting from the occupation. Over the past 50 years, Israel has demolished tens of thousands ...
Why is the West Bank closed?
The hundreds of Israeli military closures across the West Bank such as checkpoints, roadblocks and settler-only roads, as well as the overall permit regime, make simple daily tasks for Palestinians who are trying to get to work, school or hospital a constant struggle. Israel claims the winding 700-km fence/wall is there to prevent armed attacks on Israel by Palestinians. But that does not explain why 85% of it is built on Palestinian land, including land deep inside the West Bank. What the fence/wall does is cut off Palestinian communities from each other and rip families apart. It also deprives Palestinians from accessing essential services and separates farmers from their land and other resources, crippling the Palestinian economy. Inherently discriminatory and unjust laws also prevent many people from being able to marry, or travel within the occupied territories or into Israel to visit or live with their loved ones. These arbitrary restrictions are discriminatory and unlawful and must be lifted immediately.
How does Israel's military rule affect Palestinians?
Israel’s military rule disrupts every aspect of daily life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It continues to affect whether, when and how Palestinians can travel to work or school, go abroad, visit their relatives, earn a living, attend a protest, access their farmland, or even access electricity or a clean water supply. It means daily humiliation, fear and oppression. People’s entire lives are effectively held hostage by Israel.
How long has Israel been evicted?
Over the past 50 years, Israel has forcibly evicted and displaced entire Palestinian communities and demolished tens of thousands of Palestinian homes and structures, leaving thousands homeless and causing terrible suffering and trauma.
What is the occupation of the West Bank?
For half a century, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip has resulted in systematic human rights violations against Palestinians living there. Since the occupation first began in June 1967, Israel’s ruthless policies of land confiscation, illegal settlement and dispossession, ...
What is an Israeli settlement?
Israeli settlement. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Israeli settlement, any of the communities of Israeli Jews built after 1967 in the disputed territories captured by Israel in ...
How many people lived in settlements in 1993?
Settlements continued to expand in the decades that followed, and by 1993 there were more than 280,000 people living in settlements (130,000 if East Jerusalem is excluded).
What was the Six Day War?
Six-Day War, brief war that took place June 5–10, 1967, and was the third of the Arab-Israeli wars. Israel’s decisive victory included the capture of the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, Old City of Jerusalem, and Golan Heights; the…
What was the purpose of the settlements in the Jordan Valley?
Israel’s political and defense establishments, meanwhile—inspired in part by the peace plan of Yigal Allon, the deputy prime minister (1967–77)—spurred the development of settlements in strategic locations such as the Jordan Valley that would bolster Israel’s security and strengthen its hand in negotiations .
When were the settlements in the Sinai Peninsula evacuated?
Settlements in the Sinai Peninsula were either dismantled or evacuated in 1982, and settlements in the Gaza Strip were dismantled in 2005. It is disputed, moreover, whether communities in the formally annexed territories of East Jerusalem (part of the West Bank territory under Jordanian rule from 1949 to 1967) and the Golan Heights constitute ...
How many settlers were there in 2019?
Despite the agreement, settlement building proliferated, especially in the West Bank, and in 2019 the number of settlers reached nearly 630,000 (413,000 if East Jerusalem is excluded). Most of these newer settlers were motivated less by reasons of ideology or recovering lost property, however, than by cheaper housing and financial incentives ...
Where is Gilo in the West Bank?
Since 2005 these communities have existed almost exclusively in the West Bank, with a handful located in the Golan Heights.
Overview
Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
Israeli settlements currently exist in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), …
Housing costs and state subventions
Settlement has an economic dimension, much of it driven by the significantly lower costs of housing for Israeli citizens living in Israeli settlements compared to the cost of housing and living in Israel proper. Government spending per citizen in the settlements is double that spent per Israeli citizen in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, while government spending for settlers in isolated Israeli settlements is three times the Israeli national average. Most of the spending goes to the securit…
Number of settlements and inhabitants
As of 2022, there are 140 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including 12 in East Jerusalem. In addition, there are over 100 Israeli illegal outposts in the West Bank. In total, over 450,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem, with an additional 220,000 Jewish settlers residing in East Jerusalem.
Additionally, over 20,000 Israeli citizens live in settlements in the Golan Heights.
Character: rural and urban
Settlements range in character from farming communities and frontier villages to urban suburbs and neighborhoods. The four largest settlements, Modi'in Illit, Ma'ale Adumim, Beitar Illit and Ariel, have achieved city status. Ariel has 18,000 residents, while the rest have around 37,000 to 55,500 each.
History
Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied a number of territories. It took over the remainder of the Palestinian Mandate territories of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, from Jordan which had controlled the territories since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, which had held Gaza under occupation since 1949. From Egypt, it also captured the Sinai Peninsula a…
Geography and municipal status
Some settlements are self-contained cities with a stable population in the tens of thousands, infrastructure, and all other features of permanence. Examples are Beitar Illit (a city of close to 45,000 residents), Ma'ale Adumim, Modi'in Illit, and Ariel (almost 20,000 residents). Some are towns with a local council status with populations of 2,000–20,0000, such as Alfei Menashe, Eli, Elkana, Efrat and Kirya…
Types of settlement
• Cities/towns: Ariel, Betar Illit, Modi'in Illit and Ma'ale Adumim.
• Urban suburbs, such as Har Gilo.
• Block settlements, such as Gush Etzion and settlements in the Nablus area.
• Frontier villages, such as those along the Jordan River.
Resettlement of former Jewish communities
Some settlements were established on sites where Jewish communities had existed during the British Mandate of Palestine or even since the First Aliyah or ancient times.
• Golan Heights – Bnei Yehuda, founded in 1890, abandoned because of Arab attacks in 1920, rebuilt near the original site in 1972.
• Jerusalem – Jewish presence alongside other peoples since biblical times, various surrounding communities and neighborhoods, including Kfar Shiloah, als…
Introduction
Background
- In order to undertake a legal analysis, it is preliminarily necessary to outline a clear definition of Israeli settlements, as well as a brief background of the issue in order to frame it in the historical and actual context. Israeli settlements, as communities of Jewish civilians, are a longstanding and growing presence in the West Bank since 1967. The term “settlement” can be defined as an…
Israeli Settlements Under International Humanitarian Law
- A legal analysis about settlements cannot be carried out without tackling the relevant provisions of International Humanitarian Law, especially the law of belligerent occupation. This is the major legal framework applicable to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. International Humanitarian Law is indeed the starting point and the prerequisite of an analysis about Human Rights Law for …
Israeli Settlements Under International Human Rights Law
- The applicable law In order to elaborate an analysis of the relevant provisions of International Human Rights Law that are applicable to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, it is first of all necessary to establish which is the law applicable within the context under our consideration. Human Rights Law, as a body of international law, applies not only to the territory of a State’s so…
Conclusion
- The establishment of Israeli settlements and its associated regime constitute a violation of numerous aspects of international law, including both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. While the violations of IHL have been well documented, this paper has focused on examining how settlements violate human rights law. Unfortunately, the human …