From hilltop outposts, Israeli settlers plan Palestinian displacement

Jewish settler outposts in the occupied West Bank set out as modest dwelling, over time turn into sprawling Israeli housing developments, often through violence means, all part of a plan that Israel's cabinet members acknowledge they have implemented to prevent the birth of a Palestinian state.

Similarly, the settler outpost of Or Meir is small. A handful of prefabricated white shelters, it sits at the end of a short dirt track on a hill leading up from Road 60, a major route that dissects the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The subsequent process can be violent. A Bedouin family told Reuters attackers who descended from Or Meir hurling Molotov cocktails drove them off Palestinian-owned land nearby last year. They fear they won't ever be able to return.

Messages posted on ​Or Meir's channel on the Telegram social media platform celebrate chasing out Bedouin herders and show the new settlers’ determination to ‍secure lasting control over what they call "strategic” territory.

This year ​was one of the most violent on record for Israeli civilian attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, according to United Nations data that shows more than 750 injuries and the rapid spread of outposts throughout land Palestinians hope will form the heart of a future state.

Israeli NGO Peace Now has recorded 80 outposts built in 2025, the most since the organization started its records in 1991. On Dec.