Palestine weekly wrap: World sanctions settlers, Israel funds settlements

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This week, moves by France to bar a senior Israeli minister, six Western states sanctioned settler networks and an Amnesty International accusation that Israel was implementing a “state-sponsored” campaign of ethnic cleansing in a drive to effectively annex parts of the West Bank, did little to restrain Israel.

The Israeli cabinet advanced the funding of dozens of new settlements, moved to legalise the very outposts whose residents terrorise Palestinian communities, and took a step it had avoided for three decades: establishing a permanent military base inside areas of the West Bank supposedly under full Palestinian administrative control.

Mounting censure, deepening entrenchment

On June 9 , France banned Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, from entering the country, alongside four settler organisation leaders and 21 individual settlers, with Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot citing Smotrich’s promotion of West Bank annexation, the resettlement of Gaza and the engineered “economic collapse” of the Palestinian Authority.

The same day, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Norway – coordinating with Australia and New Zealand – sanctioned networks financing settler violence. On June 10 , Amnesty International accused Israel of a years-long, state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank designed to accelerate annexation; the Israeli military rejected the charge. Addressing the UN Security Council that day, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of a “presumption of impunity” across the occupied territory, citing settler violence “now averaging six attacks per day”, displacement “at levels not seen since 1967”, and an attempted annexation that he said would have “no legal validity”.

Israel’s answer came within days. Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said the cabinet moved to fund 69 settlements in a plan worth $388m, while bypassing standard planning procedures. Peace Now added that the government has approved or legalised 103 settlements since late 2022, 51 of them entirely new, with many of the newly funded sites in strategically sensitive areas, such as the South Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley.

Such political backing for the increasingly brazen settler movement comes as the Oslo Accords’ territorial divisions, which nominally place Areas A and B of the West Bank under Palestinian partial or full control, are being eroded in unprecedented fashion by Israeli authorities. On June 11 , Haaretz reported the Israeli military announcing it was establishing a permanent post in Jenin refugee camp – the first standing presence within Area A since Oslo, an area meant to be under full Palestinian civil and security control. The army said the post would “regulate the deployment of forces”.

Coordinated outpost campaign, nightly settler raids

As the cabinet weighed legalising some of the most violent outposts, the drive to build new ones deeper into Palestinian-administered land played out most visibly northwest of Ramallah.

In Deir Abu Mash’al, residents spent six consecutive days attempting to stop settlers establishing an illegal outpost on al-Qarana hill. After villagers repeatedly dismantled a settler tent, settlers erected a second on June 15 , attacking residents and a council member and injuring four Palestinians, one critically, while Israeli forces fired tear gas and live ammunition, according to Wafa and local activists.

Settlers expanded outposts elsewhere – bringing mobile units to Karmeilo, east of al-Taybeh, unloading caravans at the Gharaba outpost northwest of Sinjil, and seizing hundreds of dunums [units of land] across the Jalud, Qaryut and Khirbet Sarra plains south of Nablus, where local activists said police barred landowners while leaving settlers undisturbed. Settler chat groups boasted in a circulated manifesto of “endless tours through Areas A and B” and “new outposts growing like mushrooms after rain”.

Nightly raids continued to set Palestinian land on fire. On June 14 , according to Wafa and local activists, 50 to 60 masked, armed settlers attacked Deir Dibwan and neighbouring Burqa east of Ramallah, torching six vehicles, partially burning a home, and setting fire to the entrances of mosques in both villages before residents extinguished them. Settlers also assaulted residents and burned wheat fields near Nablus.

Bedouin communities and the weaponisation of water

Bedouin and herding communities continued to bear the brunt of harassment, water sabotage and demolition orders aimed at forcing families off their land. According to documentation provided by local activists, Israeli authorities issued demolition and stop-work orders against 13 structures in al-Deirat and six in Khallet al-Hamous near Yatta, demolished homes of the al-Zawahra family at Mikhmas and others east of Yatta, and razed a poultry slaughterhouse that supported 50 people in Ras Karkar.

On June 15 , in the Ighziwah and Ma’in areas east of Yatta, forces demolished two family homes housing 25 people, two agricultural sheds, a perimeter wall, a 130-cubic-metre water well and uprooted 20 trees in the properties of the Rab’i and Jabarin families, according to activist reports and photos.

The weaponisation of water was repeated throughout the week as well. According to Wafa and local activists, settlers severed pipelines supplying two communities at Khan al-Ahmar, contaminated wells near Sa’ir, burned a well supplying Udala, stole pipes near a Bethlehem reservoir, and – with Israeli forces – seized five water tankers in Idhna. In addition, Nayef Khalaife told Al Jazeera that settlers again invaded his family home on June 12 , emptying water tanks and damaging infrastructure.

OCHA reported that since January, more than 100 incidents have damaged or destroyed over 190 water and sanitation structures across the West Bank, cutting off at least 10 Masafer Yatta communities from the network.

Deadly ‘ceasefire’ continues in Gaza

In Gaza, eight months into a nominal ceasefire, Israeli strikes, shelling and gunfire continued to kill Palestinians daily. The Gaza Health Ministry’s post-ceasefire toll climbed past 990 and the cumulative toll since October 2023 surpassed 73,000.

On June 14 , an Israeli strike on a warehouse near the Yemen al-Sa’eed Hospital in Jabalia killed at least four people. On June 15 , according to Wafa and local activist reports, attacks in Nuseirat, al-Zawayda and Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood killed several civilians, including a four-year-old girl, while a detained child was reported killed the day after being seized with his father.

At the constantly shifting “Yellow Line” demarcating Israel’s continuing military control within Gaza, forces pushed forward under heavy fire into Tuffah and toward the al-Sanafour roundabout, advancing engineering units and bulldozers and triggering a fresh wave of displacement from eastern Gaza City, according to local reports. Zaki al-Qara, 30, was shot dead on June 14 near the Bani Suheila roundabout where vehicles had crossed the line. A three-year-old boy, Rayan Abu al-Ajeen was shot and killed on his family farm near the line in Deir el-Balah.

Israeli officials, meanwhile, approved plans for a possible return to large-scale fighting, citing intelligence that Hamas had rebuilt parts of its infrastructure, Haaretz reported.

With aid entering Gaza still severely restricted, the humanitarian picture continues to worsen. OCHA said more than 70 percent of Gaza’s population depends on trucks of water and funding shortfalls are threatening the supply. Fuel entering the Strip is down to barely a million litres for the week and daily cooked-meal production has halved since March. Gaza’s health ministry said Israel was blocking at least 16,500 patients from leaving for treatment – among them Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, who appeared by video link at an Israeli Supreme Court hearing showing what his lawyers called signs of torture following over 500 days in detention.

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