Outposts, violence, impunity: The anatomy of Israeli settler land grabs

Beita, occupied West Bank – Olive harvest season is traditionally a time when Palestinian families gather in their groves, pick olives and cook over open fires.

But when Musa Bani Shamsa and his 17-year-old son, who requested anonymity, arrived at his land in Beita, southeast of Nablus, the groves were empty.

On the morning of October 14 after they arrived, a group of masked Israeli men surrounded them. They carried pistols, knives, pipes, sticks and a hammer, Shamsa told Al Jazeera. Only their eyes were visible.

“At one point, I would take the beating for my son, and at another, my son would take the beating for me,” he said. “I was afraid they would kill him, kill him dead, because this has happened a lot.”

He lifted his shirt to show his bruises and stab wounds that were still healing. The beating lasted at least 20 minutes until he and his son were left lying on the ground. Shamsa was bleeding and lost consciousness.

“They thought we were dead, so they left us,” he said.

Shamsa said his attackers came from an Israeli outpost on the adjacent hill. Three days after the assault, his son was still unable to speak from the shock.

Settler violence across the occupied West Bank is rising sharply.

Since September 1, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded more than 200 attacks on Palestinian farmers, more than the total number of similar assaults for the entire season last year.

With more beatings, arson attacks and livestock theft, “people are afraid,” Shamsa said, “in every sense of the word.”

He shares that fear but refuses to abandon his land.

Farmers have adapted their routines.

Harvesting begins earlier, at 5am. People block roads with stones to slow approaching settlers and take turns picking olives and keeping watch from rooftops with binoculars.

When settlers approach, families flee. Some return at night to harvest by phone light.

But these precautions offer little protection. In nearby villages, Shamsa said, settlers wait until farmers have finished picking before stealing their harvest and equipment.

“They come and take their olives and beat them, and they also take the mats they place under the olive trees,” he said. “Every time we give up a little, they take a little more. They do not want to give us safety.”

How an outpost takes root

At the centre of Israeli settlement expansion are outposts, which often begin with little more than a flag, a tent or a livestock pen on Palestinian land. Established near Palestinian villages, they can expand to control surrounding fields and grazing areas.

From his porch, Khalil Tafakji, a cartographer and an expert on borders and settlements, pointed to a hill where Israeli flags flew above Palestinian homes.

He described outposts as “the offspring of the mother settlements”.

Positioned between existing Israeli settlements, they help link them and extend Israeli control “over the largest possible area of land with the smallest number of residents”, Tafakji told Al Jazeera.

Under international law, all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal. Outposts are also illegal under Israeli law until approved by the government, yet many receive state support even before formal recognition.

“The state is behind the settlers, supporting them financially, morally, politically, militarily and in every detail,” Tafakji said.

In 2024, settlers established 62 new outposts, backed by 75 million shekels ($20m) in government funding. In total, the government has channelled at least 100 million shekels ($30m) to outposts and farms for security equipment and infrastructure, including roads, vehicles, drones, cameras and electric gates, according to Peace Now, an Israeli NGO. The government also retroactively legalises outposts.

In March, Israel’s security cabinet approved 34 new settlements, including 10 existing outposts. Israeli media reported that the decision provides for water and electricity infrastructure before final planning approval.

In Beita, a similar pattern is unfolding. Israel authorised the Evyatar outpost, first established in 2013, as a settlement in 2024. Since then, residents said, three smaller outposts have emerged around it.

Rabee al-Sharafa, a Beita resident living on the edge of the village, said settlers at first draw power from lines near the village before infrastructure is formally extended to them.

“If there is a power line close to the village, they may simply steal from it, no problem,” he said. “If it is cut off from them, they have no problem. The electricity company comes and extends it to them.”

As the number of outposts rises, so too do the threats of violence and force to remove Palestinian families from their land.

“The policy they follow is a policy of slow surrender,” al-Sharafa said of the settlers.

In March, 10 masked men armed with sticks, machetes and axes attacked a family and threatened to kill its members if they did not leave, he said. The family fled. Another home was emptied in June, and since early October, settlers have targeted a third, cutting off its electricity and water.

“We compare it to a string of prayer beads that comes apart,” al-Sharafa said.

No protection, no recourse

Palestinians said they have nowhere to turn.

The Israeli army protects the settlers, and Palestinians are rarely able to get recourse through the legal system .

When residents try to defend their homes, settlers “immediately bring the army against you”, al-Sharafa said. “Sometimes the army knows there is an attack but does not want to intervene until the attack is over.”

Al Jazeera has reached out to the Israeli military for comment but has yet to receive a response.

The law is also used to take the land itself.

Israel draws on a patchwork of Ottoman, British and Jordanian laws alongside its own military orders to seize Palestinian territory. Under an Ottoman-era law, land left uncultivated for several years can be claimed by the state. Israel uses this provision to declare areas “state land”, where Tafakji said many settlements have been established.

Other land is seized through military orders or expropriated for “public purposes”.

“They are confiscating our lands in order to establish another state and expel us. This is a process of uprooting and replacement,” Tafakji said.

Palestinians with formal title deeds have occasionally won in Israeli courts. But even then, “the military governor comes and turns it into a military zone,” Tafakji said.

In Beita, Shamsa fears that if violence forces farmers to abandon their olive groves, Israel could eventually claim them as state property.

He kept a tent on his land for about six years to enjoy time with friends and family, but settlers demolished it.

“If I abandon [the land] for a few years, they could cut down the trees and use that to say the land belongs to the state,” he said.

Meanwhile, criminal complaints rarely lead anywhere. Of the police investigations into settler violence monitored by the Israeli rights group Yesh Din from 2005 to 2023, 94 percent were closed without an indictment.

“Who are we supposed to complain to? Complain to the one oppressing you?” Shamsa asked.