A new generation of Israeli settlers returned to the Kadim settlement in the occupied West Bank, two decades after it was evacuated by a decision of a previous Israeli government.
The Regional Settlement Council reported the arrival of the first thirty “vanguard families” to the settlement on Thursday from Tel Aviv, benefiting from a wave of Jewish nationalism led by the current Israeli government.
The settlers came in small groups, some under military escort, and blue and white Israeli flags fluttered on their cars as they crossed Palestinian villages and agricultural lands.
Some of them were pulling trailers loaded with bedding, furniture, and building materials.
The Israeli government has lifted a 20-year ban on Jewish settlements around Jenin. Palestinian residents fearfully follow new efforts to expand settlement in the area.
All Israeli settlements and outposts are illegal under international law, and outposts are also illegal under Israeli law, although they often enjoy state support in services and funding.
Extremist right-wing Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said during the opening ceremony: “Twenty-one years after the crime of expulsion from northern Samaria, we have completed the correction [...] and returned to the Kadim settlement,” using the biblical name for the northern West Bank.
At his side was the Israeli Minister of Justice, the Speaker of the Knesset, and the head of the Regional Council of Settlers, Yossi Dagan, who pledged that the settlers would one day return to Gaza as well.
Kadim, located on a small hill outside the Palestinian city of Jenin, was evacuated in 2005 by a previous Israeli government as part of a broader unilateral disengagement plan, which also saw the withdrawal of all Jewish settlers and soldiers from Gaza and the dismantling of three other settlements in the northern West Bank.
The four settlements were considered at the time to be too isolated, expensive to protect, and of limited strategic value.
In recent weeks, white mobile homes have appeared on the top of the hill here again, preparing for the return of families.
Our request to speak to people during the opening ceremony was denied; We were told that no media is allowed to enter the settlement today.
As we drove down a dirt road on the hill beyond, we met a Palestinian farmer who grows vegetables and lives in the house where he was born 53 years ago.
He told me how, as a child, he witnessed the construction of Kadim for the first time, and then twenty years later witnessed the settlers there being forced to leave by government decision.
“At that time, the settlers lived next to us, and we coexisted peacefully,” he told me. “They were living their lives and we were living ours.”
Now, he watches their return and feels afraid.
He said: "I am afraid of the events spreading around us, and the side road where they demolished shops and businesses."
He added: "They expelled my nephews from their vegetable fields and citrus trees, and told them: There is no place for you here, do not come back."
He said that his family fled here from Haifa in 1948 during the war between the Arabs and Israel.
He added, "I am no longer capable of any further displacement... We are living in a state of surrender. It is a life dominated by fear."
After the evacuation of Kadim and the three other settlements here in 2005, Israelis were banned from settling in this area, but the current Israeli government has lifted that ban.
Kadim is the last of the settlements to be evacuated in 2005 and reopened. Ganim, Sanur, and Homesh were previously officially opened, and families moved there.
But these settlements are a drop in the ocean of the settlement project implemented by the Israeli government here. Since assuming power in late 2022, it has approved more than 100 new settlements throughout the West Bank, including 19 settlements in the northern West Bank.
The rapid pace of construction in Jenin is part of a broader race by the Israeli government to expand settlements in the West Bank ahead of Israeli elections in October, says Hagit Ofran, director of the settlement monitoring program at Peace Now.
One of these new settlements, Emek Dotan, west of Jenin, was officially opened last Sunday, and now includes about 24 Jewish families.
From a small village containing Palestinian homes adjacent to Emek Dotan, teacher Samer Jaber followed the formation of the settlement: bulldozers first, then mobile homes that were placed in the place. He said the trouble started even before most of the families moved in.
Then he said to me: “Groups come and stand in front of our houses and film us.”
He added: "They came yesterday and stood here filming me and my children. And every time my wife goes outside, they film her as well. They are trying to enter our homes. They move from one house to another and shine strong flashlights directly through all the windows at two or three in the morning."
Samer suffers from partial visual impairment and a leg injury that makes his movement difficult.
“Fear dominates everything,” he said. “We have no way to defend ourselves.” He added: "They all carry weapons, and I am bringing cement blocks to close this side of the house because I fear for my children."
Samer has watched settlements and settler attacks expand in other parts of the West Bank over the past few years, despite international pressure.
“Europe does not have time for us, the United States is preoccupied with Iran, and China is not interested,” he said, an analyst.
He added: "Russia is preoccupied with Ukraine, the United Nations has ended, and the Arab countries have their own internal problems."
“Democracies are over, they are over,” he concluded. Samer concluded, anger and bitterness seeping from his words: “Civilization, progress, and modernity are just lies.”
In addition to the new settlements around Jenin, two new Israeli military bases are being rapidly constructed, construction machinery kicking up dust behind high cement walls that end with watchtowers and barbed wire, and Israeli flags flutter above them.
Abu Al-Rub described the past two decades without settlers around Jenin as a "blessing."
He said: "We are now living in hell because of them and their attacks." He added: "This restricts our movement. They cut off roads, bulldoze lands, and uproot trees."
The speed of change here is breathtaking.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting drinking coffee in a café on the road that runs from Kadim across the northern West Bank into Israel. Now, that café, and dozens of Palestinian shops and businesses surrounding it, are just piles of rubble on the side of the road after they were demolished by the Israeli army.
