At the beginning of the summer of 2023, the Israeli government, led by the nationalist right and the extreme right, took several decisions presaging a possible total annexation of the West Bank. In this territory populated by 3.3 million Palestinians, occupied for fifty-six years by the Jewish state, Israeli settlements have multiplied over the years, despite repeated criticism from the international community.

Since 1967, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) has passed no less than eleven resolutions condemning the occupation of the West Bank and attacks on civilians: 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 446 (1979 ), 452 (1979), 465 (1980), 476 (1980), 478 (1980), 1397 (2002), 1515 (2003), 1850 (2008) and 2334 (2016). In February 2023, the UN Security Council further deplored the non-compliance with these resolutions and “the expansion of settlements”.

Since 2007, an average of 13,586 settlers have settled in the occupied territory each year. Their number has quadrupled in around thirty years, from 116,300 to 465,400 between the Olso peace accords (1993) and 2021.

Between legal evolution and tolerance of informal settlements

The installation of a colony responds to a complex legal process on the side of the Jewish state. After the Six-Day War in 1967, a handful of settlements were first set up by the government in sparsely or unpopulated and recently conquered areas. Subsequently, from the early 1970s, settlers carried out illegal settlements, including under Israeli law.

Between the permanent settlements – most often located near the 1967 armistice line, and gradually legalized by Israeli justice, but not by international law – there are “outposts”. These informal settlements are not officially recognized by the state – but are nevertheless often protected by the army – and are sometimes dismantled at great expense. All were installed after the Oslo Accords of 1993, when Tel Aviv undertook at the time not to authorize any new installations.

Since Binyamin Netanyahu’s return to the post of Prime Minister in 2009, dozens of informal settlements have been legalized by the government, the last of which in February 2023. At the same time, only two have been evacuated: Migron in 2012 and Amona in 2017.

With the construction, from 2002, of the “separation wall” between Israeli territory and the West Bank, 8.5% of Palestinian territory is now on the Israeli side, including a large number of settlements. The route of this wall, of which the UN condemns “the dramatic humanitarian impact”, follows only 20% of its length the route of the “green line”, the armistice line resulting from the Arab-Israeli war. of 1949.

Different categories of settlements

Peace Now, an Israeli association favorable to the recognition of a Palestinian state, which measures the evolution of the installation of settlements in the West Bank, distinguishes three categories of installations:

According to Peace Now records that we have had access to, 55% of these settlements are nationalist (79 out of 145), 41% are described by the NGO as “quality of life” (59 settlements) and 4% are categorized as ultra-Orthodox. (7 settlements).