Israelis return to closed West Bank settlement, defying growing international anger

JENIN — A new generation of Israeli settlers has returned to the settlement of Kadim in the occupied West Bank, two decades after it was closed by a previous Israeli government.Thirty “pioneer families” had arrived in the settlement on Thursday from Tel Aviv, according to the regional settlers’ council, riding a wave of Jewish nationalism driven by Israel’s current government.The settlers traveled in small groups, some accompanied by military escorts, with Israeli flags displayed on their vehicles as they passed Palestinian villages and agricultural land. Some families also brought trailers carrying furniture, bedding and construction materials.Speaking at an opening ceremony, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the return marked what he described as a reversal of the evacuation of settlements in northern Samaria, the biblical term used by some Israelis for the northern West Bank.Alongside him were Israel’s Justice Minister, the Speaker of the Knesset, and Yossi Dagan, head of the regional settlers’ council, who vowed that settlers would one day return to Gaza too.Israel’s government has overturned a 20-year ban on Jewish settlements around Jenin. Palestinian residents are watching the new push on settlement expansion here with fear.All Israeli settlements and settler outposts are illegal under international law. Outposts are also illegal under Israeli law, though are often supported by state services and funding.Kadim, on a small hillside outside the Palestinian city of Jenin, was evacuated in 2005 as part of a wider unilateral Disengagement Plan that also saw all Jewish settlers and soldiers pulled out of Gaza, and three other settlements in the northern West Bank dismantled.At the time, the four settlements were considered too isolated and costly to protect, and of little strategic value.In recent weeks, white trailer homes have appeared on the hilltop here again, in preparation for families to return.Kadim is the last of the settlements evacuated in 2005 to reopen. Ganim, Sanur and Homesh have already been formally opened, and families moved in.But they are a drop in the ocean of the Israeli government’s settlement project here. Since it took power in late 2022, it has approved more than 100 new settlements across the West Bank, including 19 in the northern West Bank.The leaders of seven countries have called for Israel to halt its controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank and warned businesses of “consequences” if they bid for construction tenders.A statement from the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada described Israel’s decision to publish tenders as “unacceptable”, and urged the Israeli government to end its expansion in the West Bank.They said it would “undermine” the prospect of the two-state solution by “driving a wedge” through the West Bank, “take us further from peace” and “further undermine Israel’s international standing”.The statement, which included President Emmanuel Macron, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Prime Minister Andy Burnham, adds to mounting European criticism of Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories and pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change course.Hagit Ofran, director of the Settlement Watch program at Peace Now, says the rapid construction in Jenin is part of a wider race by the Israeli government to expand settlements in the West Bank before Israeli elections are held in October.One of those new settlements is Emek Dotan, to the west of Jenin, formally opened last Sunday and now home to almost two dozen Jewish families.From the small hamlet of Palestinian houses next door to Emek Dotan, teacher Samer Jaber, has watched the settlement take shape: first the bulldozers, then the caravans lifted into place. The problems began even before most of the families moved in, he said.”Groups come and stand opposite our houses, filming us,” he said.”Yesterday they came and stood here, filming me and my children. Every time my wife stepped outside, they filmed her too. They try to enter our homes. And they go house by house, shining powerful floodlights directly through all the windows at two or three in the morning.”Samer is partially blind and has a leg injury that makes moving difficult.”Fear dominates everything. We are completely defenseless,” he said. “All of them have weapons. I’m bringing concrete blocks to close off this side of the house because I’m afraid for my children.”Samer has watched settlements – and settler attacks – grow in other parts of the West Bank over the past few years, despite international pressure.”Europe has no time for us, America is preoccupied with Iran, China has no interest,” his analysis began. “Russia is busy with Ukraine, the United Nations is finished, and the Arab countries have their own internal problems.””Democratic systems are over, they’re finished,” he concluded, anger and bitterness leaking out. “Civilisation, progress and modernity are lies.”Alongside the new settlements around Jenin, two new Israeli military bases are rapidly going up – construction vehicles churning up dust behind high concrete walls topped with watchtowers and barbed wire, Israeli flags flapping in the wind.A military outpost is also being built on seized Palestinian land beside Jenin Refugee Camp – the first Israeli military base to be built on land under full Palestinian Authority control since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993.Israel’s military evacuated thousands of residents from Jenin Refugee camp before occupying it in 2025.The Palestinian Authority Governor for Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, said he was worried that Israel’s seizure of land around the refugee camp signalled a plan to house settlers there, right in the heart of a Palestinian city, dividing it up like Hebron or Jerusalem.He described the past two decades without settlers around Jenin as “bliss”.”Now, we live in the hell orchestrated by them and their assaults,” he said. “It limits our movement. They cut off roads, bulldoze lands and cut down trees.”The countdown to Israeli elections in October marked in the number of Palestinian buildings demolished, the number of new settler caravans.