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Racing Against the Ballot: Israel’s Settlement Drive in the West Bank Hits Historic Highs

30 October 2026 · Algeria Now

HEBRON — On October 24, three days before Israel’s legislative elections, the Israeli army forced Palestinians to evacuate the Ein Deir Baha neighbourhood in the occupied city of Hebron, and Israeli flags were soon hanging from one of the emptied houses. The scene captures a broader reality: under the outgoing government, settlement expansion has moved from gradual creep to full-speed acceleration.

Half of all settlements built in three years

The numbers are stark. According to an AFP analysis of data from the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, the International Crisis Group (ICG) and the UN humanitarian office OCHA, nearly half of all Israeli settlements in the territory, all illegal under international law, have been established since 2023. Including annexed East Jerusalem, Peace Now counts more than 550 in total, of which roughly 150 were set up with government approval; the rest began as unauthorized outposts.

The pace keeps rising. Peace Now says the number of farms and other outposts set up since January 2026 has already matched the record for all of 2025, around 90, almost three times the 2023 figure. Settlement activity in 2023–2026 is one and a half times greater than the three previous waves of expansion combined.

Farms: occupying the most land with the fewest settlers

The main engine of this expansion is the “farm outpost.” These farms let settlers seize large areas with very few people, mostly through livestock grazing, and they often control vast stretches of the eastern West Bank along the Jordan River. Since 2023, they have accounted for more than two-thirds of the total. Settlers keep building them without authorization, emboldened by the fact that such outposts are frequently legalized after the fact.

The state is not a bystander. According to ICG, building permits issued by Israeli authorities surged to over 23,000 in 2025, more than triple the 2012 figure. In July 2026, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich revealed that the security cabinet had approved a budget of 1.3 billion shekels (about $434 million) to establish 34 new settlements. Israel also signed an 8.5-billion-shekel framework deal to build 12,000 housing units in the occupied West Bank. Peace Now denounced it as an electoral manoeuvre to impose facts on the ground before the vote.

Two symbolic thresholds were crossed this year. The four northern West Bank settlements evacuated in 2005 under Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan were officially re-established, at the government’s initiative. And a tender was launched for more than 1,200 homes, the first phase of the E1 project next to the Maale Adumim settlement near Jerusalem. The UN and part of the international community condemn the project because it would finish cutting East Jerusalem off from the rest of the West Bank, further endangering any future Palestinian state.

Record violence, emptied villages

Land grabs on the map come with violence on the ground. In June, the UN said settler violence had reached record levels, with an average of six attacks per day causing casualties or damage. OCHA data show that at least 1,988 Palestinians were displaced across the West Bank in the first four months of 2026 alone, already 20 percent more than in all of 2025.

Human Rights Watch reports that escalating settler attacks have fully or partially displaced 107 Palestinian communities since January 2023, alongside an unprecedented expansion of settlements. The occupied territory is home to more than three million Palestinians and over 500,000 Israeli settlers.

What Israel says

The Israeli government makes no secret of its objective. When it approved 19 new settlements, it described the move as a way to block the establishment of a “terrorist” Palestinian state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to keep building settlements despite mounting international pressure, and praised the creation of nearly 300 settlements and agricultural outposts since his government took office. Israeli authorities also cite security. They ordered a total closure of the territory on election day, after two Israeli soldiers were killed in an attack on the preceding Friday.

What the law says

International law leaves little room for ambiguity. In its July 2024 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice found Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful and called for an end to new settlement activity and the evacuation of settlers. Settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank are illegal under international law.

Algeria and the international response

Algeria has repeatedly raised the alarm. In late July, the Algerian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the repeated settler attacks on Palestinians and their property across West Bank villages and towns, and called on the international community to act immediately to stop them. Algiers described these practices of violence and intimidation as a way to entrench settlement expansion and undermine peace efforts. It also reaffirmed its long-standing support for the Palestinian people’s legitimate national rights, which it considers non-negotiable.

In Europe, the EU has condemned Israeli security cabinet decisions to expand control over the West Bank as “another step in the wrong direction.” Condemnations, however, have rarely been followed by binding measures. EU foreign ministers met in Brussels in July to discuss trade sanctions on settlement products.

After the vote

The October 27 election produced no clear winner, and official results are expected in early November. But one lesson from history is uncomfortable: settlement has continued under every Israeli government since 1967, left and right alike; the first settlement, Kfar Etzion, was authorized by a Labour government in September 1967. Whoever forms the next coalition will inherit a map that has been transformed. For the Palestinians of Hebron, the Jordan Valley and the hills around Ramallah, the question is not which party governs in Jerusalem, but whether anyone will finally enforce the law.

Racing Against the Ballot: Israel’s Settlement Drive in the West Bank Hits Historic Highs

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