Settlement

Settlement building began within months of the June 1967 war and continued under every Israeli government since. Today approximately 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in more than a hundred government-authorized settlements and, alongside them, outposts erected without formal authorization. Settlement blocs, bypass roads, and closed military zones have progressively fragmented Palestinian land into what the Israeli organization B’Tselem has described as non-contiguous ‘territorial islands.’

The near-universal international position rests on the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, Article 49 of which states that ‘the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.’ On 23 December 2016 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2334, reaffirming that the settlements constitute ‘a flagrant violation under international law’ and have ‘no legal validity.’ The International Court of Justice reached the same conclusion in its 2004 advisory opinion on the separation barrier and again in July 2024, when it held that Israel must end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, including by evacuating settlers.

Israel disputes this consensus, arguing that the territories are ‘disputed’ rather than occupied and that settlement is neither prohibited nor the obstacle to peace it is said to be. Precedents for removal exist — settlements in Sinai were evacuated in 1982 under the peace treaty with Egypt, and Israel dismantled its Gaza settlements in 2005 — but in the West Bank the enterprise has only expanded.

Sources

• Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49 — ICRC IHL Databases
• Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016) — United Nations press release, 23 December 2016