For the Israeli settlement movement, this April was a moment of victory. For years, the movement had lobbied the Israeli government to reverse its 2005 decision to remove most settlements from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank. This month, the influence paid off. Israel officially established Sa-Nur, the last of the four West Bank settlements evacuated in 2005, to be legalized. The settlers, then, had finally removed all traces of secession in the West Bank. Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich explained The legalization of Sa-Nur as “historical reform,” while settler leader Yossi Dagan claimed that Israel had succeeded in “turning back the clock.”
But Israel is doing more than turning back the clock in the West Bank. It creates a new reality that will–in Smotrich’s words—”kill” Palestinian nationalism once and for all. His chosen methods for doing so are three: to expand housing; forcing West Bank Palestinians into smaller physical territories; and above all, increasing pressure on the Palestinian Authority (PA).
For the Israeli settlement movement, this April was a moment of victory. For years, the movement had lobbied the Israeli government to reverse its 2005 decision to remove most settlements from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank. This month, the influence paid off. Israel officially established Sa-Nur, the last of the four West Bank settlements evacuated in 2005, to be legalized. The settlers, then, had finally removed all traces of secession in the West Bank. Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich explained The legalization of Sa-Nur as “historical reform,” while settler leader Yossi Dagan claimed that Israel had succeeded in “turning back the clock.”
But Israel is doing more than turning back the clock in the West Bank. It creates a new reality that will–in Smotrich’s words—”kill” Palestinian nationalism once and for all. His chosen methods for doing so are three: to expand housing; forcing West Bank Palestinians into smaller physical territories; and above all, increasing pressure on the Palestinian Authority (PA).
This campaign, which began before October 7, 2023, but has escalated at an alarming rate, is now pushing the feverish situation in the West Bank to the brink. If left unattended, it will risk undoing the situation as it is after Oslo for good, bringing about the downfall of the PA and turning what is currently one of Israel’s most peaceful borders into a quagmire of endless chaos.
Middle Israelis from time to time explain confused while the international community considers Smotrich’s messianic statements to reflect public policy or opinion. However when it comes to the West Bank, it is Smotrich who is calling the shots.
This began in late 2022, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power. In a recording leaked that year, Smotrich explained Netanyahu as “the liar of all liars.” But he recognized Netanyahu’s value: after burning his bridges with other parties, the prime minister relied more on the far right than before. This calculation was confirmed when Netanyahu gave Smotrich a powerful Finance Ministry and created Smotrich’s new Defense Ministry post that would control zoning, construction and infrastructure in the West Bank.
With these measures, Netanyahu transferred authority over developments in the West Bank from the Israeli army, which traditionally has been a priority. silence. The change also coincided with another existing trend: the West Bank be more aggressive. In October 2022, the Israeli army was launched raids in PA-controlled Nablus to counter the rise of new Palestinian armed groups. But this invasion remained temporary.
After Netanyahu returned to power, however, government policy began to fuel violence. After a Palestinian attack killed two Israelis in February 2023, settlers stormed the town of Huwara. The government then to be revoked a ban on Israelis entering areas of the West Bank that were evacuated during the withdrawal of 2005. More outposts (settlements that were not officially approved by the Israeli government) were was established in 2023 than any previous year. Many settlers became more violent. This is why, on October 6, 2023, a large number of Israeli troops were deployed in or near the West Bank and away from Gaza.
Later, as the war raged in Gaza, Israel took measures that increased the levels of violence and political instability in the West Bank. The area saw increase in attacks against Israelis shortly after October 7, involving local Palestinians who may have been inspired by or received direct orders from Hamas. Palestinian attacks, however, decreased shortly thereafter and had already halved by November 2023; by February 2024, they had declined more until about before Oct. 7 levels.
However, settlers and military violence against Palestinians in the West Bank it continued to improve. Israeli soldiers were rarely seen in West Bank cities, with the exception of Hebron and Jerusalem. Not anymore. In January 2025, Israel launched “Operation Iron Wall,” which gave its troops broad powers to enter territory under PA control.
Different previous military operations that responded to an increase in Palestinian attacks, this operation was accompanied by a decline. At the same time, settler attacks against Palestinians almost doubled between 2022 and 2025. As a result, more than 1,000 West Bank Palestinians—most of them civilians—have been to be killed and Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 7.
All this was accompanied by changes at the political level. Since the Paris Protocols of 1994, Israel had handed over customs duties on all goods bound for the West Bank to the PA. But as finance minister, Smotrich ended this policy, immediately depriving the PA of more than 50 percent of its annual income. At the time of writing, Israel has is restricted more than 5 billion dollars in tax revenue.
The result is that the PA—the main employer of the West Bank—has is restricted part of the wages of all its employees, many of whom take home less than 40 percent of their wages. The unemployment of the West Bank, meanwhile, has more than twice since October 7, when Israel clashed with Palestinians crossing the border for work. The result is that few Palestinians have jobs, while most of those who do have their wages severely reduced.
Israel is also practicing systematic population displacement, which puts more pressure on the cash-strapped PA. According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, 59 Palestinian communities have been absolutely reduced population after October 7; 16 others have been partially expelled. This is mainly due to the violence of the settlers. It’s also no coincidence: Most of them were in area C, the part of the West Bank where Israel has full political and military control. This is also where most of the settlers live.
Furthermore, 2025 marked the very first year that Israel’s sovereignty demolished more Palestinian homes in Area C than Palestinians built. This shows that the Israeli government and the settler movement are working side by side to remove area C and relocating Palestinians to areas A and B, where the PA has more control.
While blocking Palestinian construction, Israel is also focusing on more settlements. Between October 7 and mid-March the settlers were built 152 new outposts in the West Bank. The Israeli government, for its part, has legalized many of the outposts, meaning they can be connected to roads, electricity and water networks.
Most of the new stations established after October 7 are are excluded like fields. This is strategic, because farms require more land than small villages or towns. Although the number of settlements is increasing, the number of settlers (in excess of natural growth) is it is not. In this context, the title of the farm allows the movement of settlers to claim higher land with a smaller number of people needed. It also challenges the settler argument that recent housing expansion is a supply-side response to housing demand.
Once created, new habitats require protection. As a result, the Israeli army has established 220 new checkpoints since October 7. All this comes at the expense of the Palestinians, lengthening the journey, suppressing the development of trade, and discouraging access to goods and needs. Furthermore, as displacement increases, accommodating and relocating the evacuees also becomes a problem for the PA. This is contributed by the Israeli army chase up to 40,000 Palestinians from refugee camps in PA-controlled territory since October 7.
Initially, the PA’s goal was to stabilize the West Bank cities, which would make Israel feel safe enough to withdraw from large parts of the area. For decades, even as leaders such as Netanyahu publicly condemned the PA, the Israeli government cooperated with it to fight violent actors, including Hamas. But while many in the security establishment still see the PA as an important source of order, the settler movement and its political allies now increasingly see it as an obstacle to their desire to expand Israel’s presence in the region.
As the International Community faces an increasingly violent environment with less money and less legitimacy, it faces an uphill battle to maintain stability. An anonymous Israeli military source claimed the cooperation with the PA caused a 78 percent decrease in Palestinian attacks against Israelis between 2024 and 2025. In 2025, a Shin Bet source he warned that the collapse of the PA could lead to the weakening of its security forces into armed militias; in effect, transforming them from a security asset to a security threat.
This was supported in April by former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, who explained Israel’s West Bank policies as “sowing the seeds for a future October 7” by bringing chaos to Israel’s most sensitive border.
But for Smotrich and fellow travelers this seems dangerous. This is because expanding Israel’s control of the West Bank, while confining the Palestinians to smaller areas, is a means to an end of preventing Palestinian statehood and achieving the reality, if not, of Israel’s annexation of much of the territory.
For hints of Israel’s planned “day after” in the West Bank, see Gaza. Hamas now controls less than half of the coastal area. The same area has almost 90 percent of the people of Gaza, most of them having been expelled from other parts of the strip that Israel now controls. In the West Bank, Area A has long been only 18 percent of the area while it has 55 percent of Palestinians. Israel seems intent on reducing the former number while increasing the latter number.
This strategy is less regime change than upheaval. Israel is pushing the Palestinians into smaller territories, which it expects its allies—Hamas in Gaza, the PA in the West Bank—to dominate. This extends its territorial control when the population is large and potentially hostile.
The difference, of course, is that Hamas led the deadliest attack in Israeli history. PA did not. There is no comparable threat from Hamas or Hezbollah in the region. Similarly, Israel has deliberately pushed the PA to breaking point while still looking to police and rule the Palestinians in the area. Together, this is a recipe for disaster. But Israel shows no signs of supporting treating the West Bank, its residents, and above all the PA as hostile threats to be downgraded and confronted.
