Israeli settlers set up shop at the gates of one of the main West Bank cities

Families of Israeli settlers have settled in houses near Jericho in the occupied West Bank, saying they bought them legally, which Palestinian officials disputed Thursday, denouncing falsified documents.

This new establishment raises fears of an increase in violence at the gates of one of the main cities of the territory, where attacks against Palestinians have intensified since October 7.

Around thirty settlers installed

In recent months, several Palestinian communities have been forced to leave the Jericho region under pressure and harassment from settlers. The families settled in “eight houses that “Nachala” bought with our help,” said Hanan Greenwood, spokesperson for the regional settlement council in this sector. The Nachala organization is an Israeli ultranationalist movement which finances the creation of new settlements in the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967, and campaigns for its annexation. She is the subject of EU sanctions for having encouraged acts of violence that led to the “forced displacement” of Palestinians.

“We arrived here yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon, we are very excited,” Mr Greenwood added. The settlement is near the archaeological site of the “Hasmonean Palaces,” named after the dynasty that ruled Judea until around 40 BCE. There are around thirty settlers who took over the site, according to the Israeli anti-colonization NGO “Peace Now”, which accuses them of having “attacked” and robbed two Israeli activists and shot a Palestinian in the leg.

New movements of Palestinians feared

The organization fears that this settlement, near Palestinian homes, will lead to new population displacements, citing the precedent of Hebron, where 400 settlers live in the old city in the middle of a Palestinian population of 250,000 inhabitants. The Palestinian governor of Jericho, Hussein Hamayel, disputed the legality, saying the land belongs to the Palestinian Authority and cannot be sold. “What is presented here is a fake, not a sale, and what is circulating is only settler propaganda,” he told AFP.

However, Palestinian landowners sometimes sell their land to Israelis, but prefer to keep these transactions secret for fear of being stigmatized within their community. The NGO emphasizes that, even in the event of a legal sale, the Israeli government retains the power to authorize or not the creation of a colony. The site is in Area C, under Israeli civil and military control, under the Oslo Accords signed in the 1990s. More than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, considered illegal under international law, alongside around three million Palestinians.