Approximately 170 illegal colonial outposts, many of them agricultural, are encroaching across the West Bank.
Reposted from IMEMC News, April 23, 2026
Israeli authorities are advancing steps to revive the illegal colony of Ganim in the Jenin district in the northern occupied West Bank, according to information published by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
The move is part of a broader push to restore colonial sites that were dismantled under the 2005 Disengagement Law.
The report states that the Israeli government approved the Ganim project in December 2025, following a decision led by Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Israel Katz.
According to the newspaper, Yossi Dagan, head of the Israeli colonial council in the northern West Bank, recently conducted two field tours at the Ganim site as part of preparations for its reestablishment.
During one of the tours, Rabbi Yehuda Sadan said that a colony would be reestablished in Ganim “within a few months,” noting that it is one of the northern West Bank colonies evacuated during the disengagement.
Dagan stated during the visit that colonial leaders intend to significantly increase the number of Israeli colonizers in the area.
The Yedioth Ahronoth report added that Israeli authorities have advanced multiple colonial projects in recent years, including the creation of new colonial outposts across the occupied West Bank.
According to Israeli data, the government has established more than 100 illegal colonies across various parts of the occupied West Bank, including sites that were formally approved and many others newly created without authorization.
In addition, approximately 170 illegal colonial outposts, many of them agricultural, are scattered across the region.
It is worth mentioning that the number of Palestinians killed by illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers since the beginning of the year, 2026, has risen to 16, following the announcement of the killing of Odah Atef Awawda, from the town of Deir Dibwan, east of Ramallah, on Wednesday. The victims include children as young as 13 and adults up to 60 years old.
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and acts of terror against civilian populations.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
Articles 53 and 147, prohibit the destruction of civilian property and classify pillage as a war crime.
*Editor’s Note: While Israel terms these “settlements,” they are actually illegal colonies on Palestinian land. See this.
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