TPC Staff
The Palestine Chronicle / September 6, 2026
An official Palestinian report documented accelerating Jewish settlement expansion into Areas A and B, including the seizure of over 100,000 dunams.
Settlement expansion pushes beyond Area C
Israel and illegal Jewish settlers are accelerating efforts to impose new realities throughout the occupied West Bank, extending settlement expansion and land seizures increasingly into areas classified under the Oslo Accords as Areas A and B, according to an official Palestinian report.
The measures include settlement construction, new outposts, road building, land confiscation, control over water sources and growing restrictions on Palestinians’ movement and access to their land.
The report cited Peace Now as documenting 26 settlement outposts and pastoral farms in Area B. Seven were initially documented at the end of 2024, followed by another 19, most established during recent months.
Their establishment has been accompanied by roads, the seizure of water sources and movement restrictions that have enabled relatively small groups of settlers to exert control over extensive areas.
Maps prepared by Kerem Navot in cooperation with Peace Now indicate that settlers have forcibly seized more than 100,000 dunams in Areas A and B.
That includes approximately 55,000 dunams in Area B, another 28,200 dunams in the “agreed-upon nature reserve” located within Area B, and around 15,600 dunams in Area A, according to the report.
The expansion is significant because Israel’s settlement project has historically been concentrated overwhelmingly in Area C, which remained under full Israeli control following the Oslo Accords. The increasing extension of Jewish settlement and administrative measures into Areas A and B further threatens geographical continuity between Palestinian cities, towns and communities.
Unprecedented land seizures inside Area A
The report also documented increasing Israeli use of military and administrative powers inside Area A, which under the Oslo framework was placed under Palestinian civil and security administration.
In February, the Israeli Security Cabinet authorized the Civil Administration to enforce measures concerning environmental issues, water and antiquities in Areas A and B.
The expansion went further in July, when Israeli Central Command chief Avi Bluth signed 15 military seizure orders covering approximately 200 dunams inside Area A.
The land is intended for construction of a road connecting the settlements of Emek Dotan, near Arraba, and Noa, north of Qabatiya.
According to the report, this represents the first time since the Oslo Accords that military seizure orders have been used inside Area A to advance settlement needs, rather than for purported temporary security purposes.
The measures followed an Israeli Security Cabinet decision to establish 104 new Jewish settlements, including 19 in the northern occupied West Bank.
Settlement expansion is proceeding simultaneously on several fronts.
A new settlement called Noa has been established southeast of Jenin, south of the former Ganim and Kadim settlements. The report described it as the eighth settlement established by the regional settlement council in the northern West Bank in less than a year.
The broader plan calls for 19 new Jewish settlements across the northern West Bank as Israel seeks to dramatically expand the settler population.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also allocated 370 dunams in Abu Dis and Arab al-Sawahra for the planned Mishmar Yehuda settlement east of occupied Jerusalem. Plans envisage approximately 3,600 settlement units as part of a larger settlement bloc.
Settler violence used to expand territorial control
The expansion is accompanied by growing administrative intervention elsewhere in Areas A and B.
In July, the Israeli Knesset Finance Committee approved 113 million shekels for the Civil Administration to develop archaeological sites throughout the occupied West Bank, including locations in Areas A and B.
The report said Israeli authorities have also expanded enforcement powers inside portions of Area B’s “agreed-upon nature reserve” in the Bethlehem wilderness, obstructing Palestinian construction and development and carrying out demolitions.
In Hebron, Israeli authorities approved the transfer of licensing, construction and municipal powers in parts of the city to the Civil Administration, alongside plans for a separate municipal entity serving settlers.
In Ramallah and Al-Bireh, more than 52 dunams in Beitunia and Al-Bireh were ordered seized to expand a military site and construct a security road around the Psagot settlement.
Israeli forces have meanwhile begun bulldozing dozens of dunams west of Deir Ballut in Salfit, adjacent to a recently established pastoral outpost.
The Palestinian report described settler violence as a central mechanism for expanding territorial control and forcing Palestinians from their land.
More than 120 Palestinian communities, primarily Bedouin and herding communities, have been affected, including 19 communities situated in Area B.
Residents have faced attacks, sieges and threats that have forced families from their homes. The report cited the Tubasi family in Jalud, whose home was seized by settlers and subsequently turned into a settlement outpost.
Israeli officials have meanwhile inaugurated the Ma’ale Arugot settlement within the Gush Etzion bloc in the southern occupied West Bank.
Taken together, the report said the settlement construction, land seizures, roads, administrative measures and settler attacks are increasingly extending Israeli control beyond Area C and fragmenting the territorial connections between Palestinian communities throughout the occupied West Bank.
(TPC, QNN, Palestinian media)
