Israel’s annexation project in the West Bank is coming to a head as the Israeli settler movement pushes for a new strategic move that stands to render the 1993 Oslo Accords obsolete and further cut Palestinian population centers off from each other. The project surfaced last week when Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported that a coalition of Israeli settler groups announced plans to establish 100 new settler outposts in Areas A and B of the West Bank. These areas were created by the Accords, and together they make up about 40% of the West Bank, theoretically falling under the partial control of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Until recently, the establishment of Israeli settlements and settler outposts in Area A — supposedly under full PA control and making up 18% of the West Bank — was considered inconceivable. Area B, comprising 22% of the territory and falling under joint PA-Israeli administration, has also rarely seen settlement construction. The remaining 60% of the West Bank, Area C, is where the majority of Israel’s settlement enterprise has taken place.
But this new project stands to change the status quo arrangement that has lasted for over 30 years.
Dubbed “the Day of Command,” the project would effectively abrogate these geographic demarcations, accelerating the ongoing Israeli project of eroding Palestinian existence in the West Bank. Given the political ramifications, it isn’t surprising that the move is not being portrayed as a state project, but rather as an initiative of the settler movement. Yet key government figures who are allied with the settler movement are willing to back it.
The precursors to this shift have been several years in the making, characterized by a series of changes in the Israeli political system that have emboldened settler groups to take the initiative in projects much more consequential than legalizing one settlement or another.
The sites of the 100 outposts slated for construction in Areas A and B have not been made public, but according to the Israel Hayom report, they are in “strategic locations” that were “not chosen randomly.” According to the Israeli publication, many of the sites were state property between 1967 and the early 1990s, after which they were transferred to the PA following the Oslo Accords. Today, these sites are considered a part of the PA’s public property.
For Khalil Tafakji, a prominent Palestinian geographer and expert on Israeli settlements, these “strategic locations” aren’t hard to narrow down. “In the Israeli lexicon, the term ‘strategic’ usually means hilltops, crossroads, religious sites, and even locations containing key Palestinian institutions of self-rule,” he explained.
Tafakji told Mondoweiss that “such strategic locations are present in every major Palestinian city, and some of them are already targeted for confiscation by Israeli settlements, like Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque, the Zaatara junction south of Nablus, and Jenin’s Jabriyat area, where the Israeli army has established a security zone in the heart of Area A.”
Who is behind the project?
The project is spearheaded by two main settler organizations: the “Habayta” NGO dedicated to helping new Jewish immigrants to establish themselves in Israel as citizens, and which mainly relies on government funding, according to Israeli reports; and the Agricultural Union, a settler group formed in the late 1980s to promote agricultural settlements in the West Bank.
Yet despite the project’s seemingly grassroots nature, Tafakji explains that the Israeli army will likely play a major role in implementing it, since “without the protection of the Israeli army, it wouldn’t be possible to establish settler outposts inside Palestinian urban areas.” For Tafakji, this makes the plan a state-sponsored project, “even if the proposal comes from the settler movement.”
“The money would need to come from the government, and the ultimate decision would need to come from the Israeli cabinet,” Tafakji continued. “The settler groups would themselves be part of the executive arm of the state, as they already are, and would be implementing state policy.”
According to Israel Hayom, the plan has already been submitted to the Israeli cabinet for approval, as well as key figures in the inner circle of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Most importantly, this includes Israel’s hard line Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a co-founder of the Agricultural Union spearheading the proposal.
What is new about this colonization plan?
The plan represents a significant push to colonize parts of the West Bank that have historically been excluded from settlement expansion plans over the past three decades — marking the beginning of a new phase in Israel’s land grab policy. This shift carries major strategic implications, yet it will likely be approved with minimal political debate or deliberation. According to proponents of the plan, quoted by Israel Hayom, “it doesn’t need a long legislative process, but a small decision by the cabinet that could change the security reality for years to come.”
The ease with which such a consequential decision could be approved is the direct result of a series of legal and administrative measures that Israel has made in how the bureaucracy of the occupation functions.
“The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is no longer run by the Israeli army,” Khalil Tafakji explained. “But rather by civil government bureaucrats aligned with the settler movement.”
This means that the administrative process for approving settlement projects is treated the same as it would be for Israeli urban projects inside Israel proper, since those government bureaucrats consider the West Bank to be a part of Israel. Most importantly, these bureaucrats have been given the power to implement their vision on Palestinian land.
While these administrative changes had precursors, they went into overdrive after October 7, 2023.
In 2024, Smotrich described the new civil bureaucratic system for administering the West Bank, which he played a leading role in introducing as the new head of the military body responsible for administering the West Bank, as “a change in the DNA of the system.”
Tafakji notes that before these changes, settlement projects had to undergo review within military and security institutions, after which the Israeli cabinet discussed them in a special meeting every six months. “Now the army, through this process, has been replaced by civil administrative bodies appointed and run by Smotrich, and the cabinet meets to approve them every week,” Tafakji said.
In recent months, the Israeli cabinet introduced a series of decisions that allowed Israeli individuals and companies to purchase property in Areas A and B, and allowed the takeover of historical and religious sites by Israeli antiquities agencies.
All these policies were laid down legislatively by the Israeli Knesset, which passed several resolutions by overwhelming majorities, including a resolution rejecting a Palestinian state in July 2024, and another approving the annexation of the West Bank in July 2025.
The nature of these policies has been clear: to do away with the framework of limited Palestinian self-government that has formed a consensus in Israeli politics since the Oslo Accords — and which the international community has regarded as the starting point to eventually achieving a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.
The destruction of this framework is no longer implicit. Last February, Bezalel Smotrich stated in a public meeting with Israeli settler leaders that his main goal was to “eliminate the idea” of a Palestinian state, and “officially and practically cancel the damned Oslo Accords.”
These policies have enabled the possibility of a plan like the “Day of Command,” making it a state-sponsored project that is folded into Israel’s concerted strategy to annex the West Bank and “bury” any chance of a Palestinian state.
“None of this could have been possible without the impunity enjoyed by Israel, especially from its western partners,” Tafakji noted. “In past years, there was some kind of pressure by Arab and European countries, and even by the U.S. itself, to slow down or put some limits on Israel’s settlement expansion.” Today, Tafakji said, no such pressure exists. Instead, Israel’s annexation is being met with total silence. “Israel is exploiting this to the maximum,” he stressed.
Qassam Muaddi
Qassam Muaddi is the Palestine Staff Writer for Mondoweiss. Follow him on Twitter/X at @QassaMMuaddi.
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