Illegal Israeli settlers establish 3 new outposts in southern West Bank: Rights group

Illegal Israeli settlers set up three new settlement outposts in the southern West Bank under the watch of the army, a Palestinian rights group said Monday.

In a statement, the Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights said illegal settlers placed dozens of mobile homes on land east of Hebron’s Birin village, effectively creating three new sites.

The group estimated that the expansion has seized around 6,400 dunums (6.4 million square meters) of land belonging to Birin, the nearby town of Bani Naim, and parts of Hebron city.

It said the area has been subjected to a two-month settlement push, including the building of roads, widespread land seizures, and the destruction of crops and water wells, measures it warned directly threaten the Palestinian presence in the region.

Last month, the Palestinian Authority’s Settlement and Wall Resistance Commission reported that illegal settlers carried out 466 attacks across the occupied West Bank in July, leaving four Palestinians dead and forcing the displacement of two Bedouin communities comprising 50 families. The report also cited attempts to establish 15 new outposts.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, at least 1,015 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank by Israeli forces and illegal settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal. It demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.