In the West Bank, settlement outposts are no longer just random gatherings appearing on hilltops, but rather have turned into a means of imposing a new reality on the ground. Small wooden houses are built without permits, herds of livestock move through agricultural lands, and attacks force Palestinian families to leave their homes and lands... This is how the settlement presence expands. At the heart of this phenomenon stands out the "Hill Boys" movement, a new generation of settlers adopting more extreme methods in their quest to expand control over the West Bank lands.

Published on: 09/30/2026 - 15:05

The attack carried out by Israeli settlers on a Palestinian village in the West Bank has brought to light the phenomenon of settler violence, at a time when criticism is increasing against the Israeli authorities due to what critics consider a failure to confront these attacks, despite repeated international condemnations.

At the heart of the escalating wave of violence stands out a group of extremist settlers known as the “Hill Boys,” which largely consists of young men, including those who have dropped out of school, while others come from areas outside the West Bank.

The movement does not appear to be a cohesive central organization, but it shares a national religious orientation that pushes it to expand the Israeli settlement presence in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Members of the movement rely in particular on establishing new settlement outposts without obtaining the required licenses. These sites often begin with tents or mobile homes erected on hills outside existing settlements.

During a reportage in the West Bank, France 24 documented such actions, which are based in particular on building small wooden homes on Palestinian lands and living in them in order to impose a fait accompli. For its part, the Israeli government provides these temporary homes with water and lighting and protects them by deploying Israeli soldiers near them.

According to Dvir Varshavsky, from the "Sons of Abraham" organization, which includes religious Jewish activists who support Palestinian rights, the current phenomenon differs from Israeli groups that have appeared since the 1990s and lived in natural areas in the West Bank. Varshavsky also believes that the new generation is adopting a more clear project based on controlling the Palestinian territories using violent methods.

Land grabbing and vandalism of religious buildings

This controversy was renewed in a remarkable way after the attack that took place on Tuesday in the village of Jalud in the northern West Bank, in which more than 100 settlers participated and resulted in the injury of three members of the Israeli security forces.

At that time, the forces were accompanying a Palestinian family who was trying to return to their home, after they had been forced to leave it as a result of previous attacks carried out by settlers.

The record of attacks is not limited to physical confrontations, as previous incidents included seizing Palestinian lands, vandalizing places of worship, including mosques and churches, and destroying olive trees and agricultural crops.

These developments led countries, including Britain and the Netherlands, to take measures and sanctions related to settlement products, which raised Israeli objection.

A message published by a channel linked to the “Hill Boys” on the WhatsApp application indicates that the movement says that it carried out 635 attacks in one year in 158 Palestinian villages.

These attacks resulted in the injury of 409 Palestinians and the burning of 436 cars. But these numbers have not been subject to independent verification.

Controlling the land and evaporating the dream of creating two states

Israeli researchers and activists who have followed the activity of the "Hill Boys" for years link the movement's rise to the changes witnessed by the settlement movement after the disengagement plan implemented by Ariel Sharon's government in 2005.

At that time, Israel evacuated 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the West Bank. The failure of the traditional movement in the settlement movement to prevent the evacuation of thousands of settlers, coupled with tension with the central government, led to the emergence of a more extreme trend.

Varshavsky says, "This generation no longer follows the traditional model based on building large settlements and bringing increasing numbers of residents to them. Instead, it relies on establishing small sites, farms, and unlicensed outposts, with the aim of expanding control over the largest possible amount of land using a limited number of settlers."

Moreover, some families were attacked by these settlers, who set fire to homes in order to force them to leave.

Pastoralism has also become an important method in this strategy, as herds of sheep and goats are used to move over large areas and gradually control rural lands under Israeli military control.

Increased support for outposts

Experts believe that the arrival of politicians who adopt ideas close to the ideology of extremist settlers, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has contributed to providing a greater amount of political and financial support to some of these groups in recent years.

Although the legal status of the unlicensed outposts prevents the Israeli government from transferring funds to them directly, Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now organization says that other forms of government support reach them, including building and paving roads, providing guard vehicles, surveillance cameras, solar panels and drones, in addition to the protection provided by the army.

Ofran also points out the existence of private funding sources, including donations and crowdfunding platforms.

Disagreement within the settler community

On the other hand, some officials responsible for the Israeli settlements in the West Bank tried to emphasize that they do not represent the “Hill Boys” movement.

At the end of last year, the heads of three Israeli local authorities in the West Bank issued a joint statement in which they called on law enforcement agencies to follow a strict policy towards members of the movement, stressing that they do not reflect the settlement movement as a whole.

But the relationship between the hard-line settlers and the security services became the subject of greater debate after October 7, 2023, when the Hamas attack on Israel led to the outbreak of war in Gaza and the confrontations expanded to other fronts.

A number of regular soldiers have been withdrawn from the West Bank, and settlement protection and patrols have become more dependent on reserve forces, including settlers who already live in the area.

Experts say that settler reserve soldiers may be less prepared than regular forces to deal with and dismantle unauthorized settlement outposts.

Ofran says that the military authorities do not deal with these hotspots with the same severity as they deal with other violations, considering that the army avoids entering into a direct confrontation with their owners.

The number of new hotspots expanded

About three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, while more than half a million Israelis reside there in settlements that the majority of the international community considers to be in violation of international law.

Peace Now says that Israel officially recognizes about 140 settlements, while there are about 400 other sites between farms and settlement outposts that are considered illegal, even under Israeli law itself.

In light of the continuing attacks and the expansion of new outposts, pressure is increasing on the Israeli government to take more stringent measures. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a speech he delivered before the United Nations General Assembly, downplayed the scale of the phenomenon, and described the perpetrators of the attacks as a limited group of people, estimating their number at about 150 people. He also accused the international community of not paying the same attention to violence committed by Palestinians.

In addition to building wooden houses in order to seize land, Route 60, which connects the south to the north of the West Bank, has isolated Palestinian villages and made it difficult for Palestinians to move from one city to another.

Thus, the file of settler violence remains one of the most sensitive files in the West Bank, in light of the expansion of settlement activity, the emergence of new methods of controlling land, and the increasing controversy over the extent of the Israeli authorities’ ability and desire to stop these attacks.

With AFP

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