Pastoral Settlement in the West Bank: The Most Dangerous Face of Occupation and the Scenario of Organized Displacement

While the spotlight is focused on the major settlements, a more cunning and politically cost-effective settlement project is advancing on the ground: pastoral settlement. This represents the most aggressive face of contemporary settler colonialism, aiming not just to house settlers but to strangle the Palestinian geographical space and turn the land into a network of isolation zones, displacing agricultural and pastoral communities silently under the guise of what is called "agricultural activity."

The West Bank is witnessing its widest settlement wave in decades, led by the accelerating spread of these pastoral enclaves. The total number of settlement outposts has reached about 289, including over 100 pastoral enclaves that spread like a thorny network across the Jordan Valley, Jerusalem, Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, and Salfit. This spread is not random; the establishment of 61 new outposts was documented in 2024, in addition to 9 outposts in the first quarter of 2025, confirming that this accelerated expansion is planned and systematic.

These enclaves do not arise in a vacuum; they receive direct support from the official Israeli establishment, transforming ministries and funding institutions into tools for land confiscation and financing crime. The Israeli Ministry of Agriculture has pumped approximately 3 million shekels between 2017 and 2024 under the cover of “pasture grants.” Meanwhile, the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet) invested about 4.7 million shekels in pastoral enclaves, establishing itself as one of the pillars supporting this settlement and displacement.

Although the declared goal is "agricultural," the true meaning of this expansion is politically and geopolitically significant. Pastoral settlement is the fastest and least expensive tool to ensure complete horizontal control over open spaces, especially areas classified as "C," which constitute about 60% of the West Bank's area. As a result, settlements today control over 42% of the West Bank's area, with this percentage sharply escalating to about 80% in the strategic Jordan Valley alone, which represents the Palestinian food and water stock. This expansion translates into actual confiscation; the area of land cultivated by settlers rose from 121,000 dunams in 2023 to 144,000 dunams in 2024, in an organized process aimed at uprooting Palestinians from their land and severing geographical connectivity between their areas.

Systematic violence, with support and cover from the army, is used as a central means to achieve daily displacement. Attacks by settlers rose from 2,410 incidents in 2023 to 2,971 in 2024, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented more than 1,000 attacks targeting 230 Palestinian communities in 2025. These attacks take the form of a war on land and livelihood, where 14,212 Palestinian trees were destroyed and uprooted in 2024, including about 1,200 olive trees in newly documented attacks in late 2025, in an attempt to sever the artery of Palestinian memory and economy. The ultimate result of this aggressive policy is catastrophic: the population of 24 pastoral communities has decreased by 39%, while Israeli authorities have demolished more than 1,300 Palestinian facilities since the beginning of 2025, achieving one clear objective: land without a people.

Pastoral settlement is the most dangerous and decisive front in the war of occupation against Palestinian existence. It works to sever the connections of geography, dry up sources of livelihood, and obliterate identity to create an irreversible demographic reality. In the face of this systematically supported machine, every dunam planted, every tent erected, and every sapling planted becomes an act of daily resistance. The Palestinian's steadfastness on his land is not just a defense of the past, but the construction of the geography of the future. For, in the end, the land retains its narrative and stands by those who tell it with their sweat and protect it with their existence.