WEST BANK<\/em> \u2014 On a hillside<\/span> overlooking the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir, a crowd of Israelis and Jewish visitors from abroad gathered for an inside look at how settlement works. They listened intently as Netanel, an Israeli settler-soldier in olive fatigues with a rifle strapped to his back, advertised his group\u2019s impact in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n \u201cIt started with this hilltop,\u201d he said, referring to the current settlement push that has crept ever closer to al-Mughayyir. \u201cWe ended up putting the area in Jewish hands. There are no Arabs here.\u201d<\/p>\n Netanel was speaking on a tour aimed at English-speaking Jews, some of whom expressed interest in moving to the settlements. He described his \u201cmission\u201d to support his fellow settlers and shepherds in their return to \u201cJudea and Samaria<\/a>,\u201d the biblical name<\/a> Israeli settlers and the Israeli government use for the West Bank.<\/p>\n The settlement movement is accelerating, recruiting outsiders to join and bringing in reinforcements from the military\u2019s Hagmar battalions, regional defense units staffed largely with settlement residents that have exploded in size since October 7, 2023. The government has issued thousands of rifles to civilian security squads, at times distributed <\/a>personally<\/a> by Israel\u2019s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Israeli watchdog groups describe the push as an unprecedented state-backed land grab, one that settlers are carrying out with an odd combination of tools: government-supplied rifles alongside herds of sheep and goats.<\/p>\n Reservist settler-soldiers like the Hagmar battalions \u201care not simply self-organized militia groups,\u201d said Marko Milanovic, a professor of public international law at the University of Reading. \u201cIn essence, they should be treated in the same way as IDF soldiers as a legal matter.\u201d<\/p>\n Established in 2025, the Metzudat David is illegal, even under Israeli law. It is one of 10 Israeli outposts that now surround al-Mughayyir as settlements expand at a rapid clip in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. At one stop on the tour, a group of Israeli youths could be seen building a new housing unit for a family slated to move into the settlement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ultimate goal is for people to leave their homes and villages. But the settlers aren\u2019t acting alone, they\u2019re backed by the Israeli government, which uses them as instruments to get what it wants,\u201d Amin Abu Alia, the council head of al-Mughayyir, told The Intercept.<\/p>\n Settlers have taken over more than 38,000 dunams of al-Mughayyir\u2019s grazing and farmland, the equivalent of nearly 9,400 acres. Across the West Bank, settlers living in farm outposts now effectively control roughly 1 million dunams \u2014 nearly a fifth of the entire territory \u2014\u00a0according to a report published this month by the Israeli watchdog groups Peace Now and Kerem Navot. The report<\/a> found that roughly 750,000 of those dunams were seized since the current Israeli government took office in late 2022.<\/p>\n Of al-Mughayyir\u2019s roughly 41,000 dunams, Palestinians today have practical access to only 1,200 to 1,500, Abu Alia said. The village\u2019s eastern gate, which opens onto the Alon Road, has been closed by the Israeli military since 2023. COGAT, the Israeli defense body that administers the West Bank, did not respond to questions about the outposts\u2019 legal status or the land and gate closures.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce [the Metzudat David] outpost went in, it effectively closed off the village\u2019s access to land to the east, displacing the community from that land,\u201d Dror Etkes, the head of the Israeli settlement watchdog Kerem Navot, told The Intercept. Residents describe a growing sense of foreboding, a feeling that their time is running short before life in al-Mughayyir becomes untenable. And that fear has only grown. On Saturday, a 17-year-old resident, Fadi Naasan, died of wounds<\/a> he sustained when he was shot during a raid on the village earlier that month, according to the al-Mughayyir village council.<\/p>\n Only a handful<\/span> of settlers like Netanel oversee the Metzudat David outpost. Otherwise, dozens of animals fan out across the land to claim as much space as possible, requiring very little manpower.<\/p>\n On the tour in June, Netanel showed off the more than 100 sheep and goats that do the settlers\u2019 work for them. The herds graze out Palestinian crops<\/a>, and their steady, intimidating presence \u2014 backed by the threat of settler violence \u2014 pushes farmers off land they can no longer safely use, clearing the way for the outpost to absorb it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n These outposts now control at least 786,000 dunams, roughly 14 percent of all land in the West Bank. Some 70 percent of the land seized by grazing outposts was taken in the past few years, according to Kerem Navot and Peace Now.<\/p>\n For now, the settlers don\u2019t make any money from the livestock, Netanel said. The milk and meat aren\u2019t profitable, but \u201cthe other work they do,\u201d he said, \u201cis invaluable.\u201d<\/p>\n Palestinians living in al-Mughayyir are unable to enter the Alon Road, the main artery connecting the eastern half of the West Bank, and must exit through the western side of the village, via Khirbet Abu Falah. Residents say this adds at least an hour to any trip.<\/p>\n Even the fallback route is under threat. One of the new outposts, built inside Area B on al-Mughayyir\u2019s northwestern lands, also encroaches on the very villages the detour runs through, according<\/a> to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.<\/p>\n \u201cThey can do whatever they want. You can\u2019t do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cIf you go through the IDF checkpoint, it\u2019s a gamble. They can arrest you, beat you, steal your money, steal your belongings,\u201d Omar Mohammed, who lives in al-Mughayyir, told The Intercept. \u201cThey can do whatever they want. You can\u2019t do anything about it.\u201d The Israeli military did not respond to questions about mistreatment of residents at checkpoints.<\/p>\n \n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Hodaya, who led the tour and knew a reporter was present, gave only her first name, like Netanel.\u00a0\u201cOn the other side of two hills, there are also another settlement,\u201d she said. \u201cSo now, you know, the [farms] are surrounded by Jews, and that helps to make the place more safe.\u201d<\/p>\n During the tour, an Israeli military armored personnel carrier was stationed at the village\u2019s yellow gate \u2014 the kind that has become a distinct marker of movement restrictions across the West Bank<\/a> since October 7, 2023 \u2014 was shut.<\/p>\n When one of the participants on the tour asked whether Palestinians resisted attempts to confiscate their land, Hodaya answered, \u201cThey don\u2019t accept it and say, \u2018Oh, very nice, we\u2019re going away.\u2019 Of course they\u2019ll fight. They\u2019re on the land, and they were permanent \u2026 but they understand that there\u2019s a change.\u201d<\/p>\n There was a sense of excitement on the tour about a Jewish return to what participants called Judea and Samaria, and an explicit recognition that doing so would require displacing Palestinians from their land.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe assumption is that \u2018We cannot get rid of [the roughly 3 million] Palestinians right now in the West Bank,\u2019\u201d Etkes, of the watchdog group Kerem Navot, said, describing the settler thinking<\/a>. \u201c\u2018So what we have to do is isolate them and take from them their means of livelihood.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Al-Mughayyir was the<\/span> village most affected by settler violence in the West Bank in 2025, when there were more than 70 recorded settler-related incidents, according to Nasser Khoudr, Middle East assistant research manager at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, known as ACLED. It is on track to earn the same distinction in 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the main reasons behind this is the expansion of nearby settlements and farming outposts, especially since 7 October,\u201d Khoudr said. \u201cThis expansion has gone together with Israeli government policies that gave more power to settler security structures.\u201d<\/p>\n In April, a settler shot and killed<\/a> Aws al-Naasan, a 14-year-old student, and Jihad Abu Naim, a 32-year-old parent, at the boys\u2019 school in al-Mughayyir, according to the United Nations and village officials.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Video of the attack, verified by multiple news outlets, shows<\/a> a man in military fatigues advancing on the village and firing repeatedly toward the school.<\/p>\n The Israeli military said the shooter was a reservist traveling in a car with other Israeli civilians who exited the vehicle and opened fire at \u201csuspects in the area,\u201d alleging that they had thrown stones at the car. The military said<\/a> the reservist was dismissed from reserve duty and his weapon confiscated, and that military police are reviewing the killings. No one has been arrested for the shooting.<\/p>\n Mohammed was one of the first to reach his friend\u2019s body after the settler-reservist shot Aws in the head. \u201cThey come in half uniform, wearing the green pants, but not the shirt,\u201d Mohammed said. \u201cWe can\u2019t tell if they are a settler, a soldier, or, well, both.\u201d<\/p>\n The distinction has dissolved. Even in regular army units, settler ideology has taken root. In March, reservists detained CNN correspondent Jeremy Diamond and his crew<\/a> in the village of Tayasir while guarding an illegal outpost, telling the journalists on camera that the entire West Bank belongs to Jews and that they were avenging a settler\u2019s death.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t tell if they are a settler, a soldier, or both.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n According to the U.N., no Israeli soldier has served prison time for killing a Palestinian in the West Bank since at least 2017, and the Israeli rights group Yesh Din found<\/a> that 93.6 percent of investigations into settler violence between 2005 and 2025 were closed without indictments.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Settlement_Tour-2.jpg?fit=1400%2C933\")
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