Under the Cover of Gaza Conflict: Israel Accelerates West Bank Annexation and Settlement Expansion

Under cover of Gaza war, Israel is seizing Palestinian land in the West Bank

While global attention remains fixed on the nearly 11-month-long conflict in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 Palestinians, Israel continues to consolidate its political and territorial gains in the occupied West Bank.

In the wake of the 7 October Hamas-led attack, Israeli politicians have leveraged the situation to greenlight the largest land grab in the occupied West Bank in three decades, spanning almost 1,270 hectares in the Jordan Valley.

Settlement monitors have reported that the land grab links Israeli settlements along a crucial corridor bordering Jordan, a move they warn jeopardises the viability of a future Palestinian state.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric described the action as “a step in the wrong direction,” emphasising that “the direction we want to be heading is toward a negotiated two-state solution”.

Despite the International Court of Justice’s July ruling deeming Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories unlawful, Israel continues to advance its expansionist agenda.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, recently unveiled plans to expand settlements in the West Bank further, vowing to solidify Israel’s hold on the territory and “prevent the creation of a Palestinian state”.

Since Wednesday, at least 18 Palestinians have been killed in the northern West Bank as Israel launched its largest military incursion in the occupied territory since the Second Intifada.

Israeli security forces described the action as a “counterterrorism operation to thwart terror” in Jenin and Tulkarm.

The operation is extensive, with Israeli forces targeting multiple Palestinian cities simultaneously, including Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, and Tubas.

Analysts told The New Arab that this new operation, in addition to Israel’s expansive settlements project, is being conducted under the “perfect cover” of Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.

Israel is seizing the opportunity to advance its longstanding settlement agenda, aiming to control as much land as possible, displace Palestinian residents, and undermine the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ability to achieve any political gains.

The fragmentation of the West Bank

“Over these past few decades, the Israeli occupation has been steadily advancing its geographic consolidation in the West Bank,” Ahmad Abu Al-Hijaa, an expert on Palestinian affairs, stated in an interview with The New Arab.

He noted that while these expansionist efforts began long before the Gaza war, “the conflict has provided Israel with a strategic inlet to accelerate these plans,” effectively “annexing the West Bank under the Israeli yolk”.

In March, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates reported that at least 40 Bedouin communities across the occupied West Bank had been forcibly expelled due to escalating attacks and crimes by Israeli settlers. Abu Al-Hijaa argues that Israel is using settlers as a tool to implement its plans for the West Bank.

“Settlers are the instruments through which the Israeli government’s decisions are enforced. The Civil Administration Coordinator, effectively the Prime Minister of the West Bank, is the actual ruler here,” he told The New Arab.

He also adds that Israeli settlers have used the war as a pretext to displace indigenous Bedouin communities in the Ma’arijat area east of Ramallah and the Jordan Valley, seizing control of hundreds of thousands of dunams in the process.

“The occupation has transformed the West Bank into an increasingly uninhabitable, hostile area for Palestinians,” he said.

This was Israel’s first significant gain on the ground. The second, he argues, is the erosion of the Palestinian political presence in the West Bank.

“The Israeli government has systematically stripped the Palestinian Authority of all powers previously granted under various agreements, reducing it to a mere administrative entity with no real authority,” Abu Al-Hijaa added.

With the exception of parts of Jenin in the northern West Bank, “90 percent of the West Bank’s territory is no longer geographically connected,” he continued.

“There is no longer any continuity between cities and their surrounding villages, and this has become a stark reality that Palestinians have to deal with,” he stated. “Israel maintains complete control through settlements, bypass roads, outposts, buffer zones, and military bases.”

Why the West Bank matters

Suleiman Basharat, Director of the Yabous Center for Studies, told The New Arab that Israel’s interest in the West Bank is driven by its “geographical significance to the future Jewish state”.

“The West Bank serves as a strategic territorial expanse for the settlement project.” This, he argues, is the essence of Smotrich’s plan to displace Palestinians beyond the Jordan River.

He also points out that Israel views the West Bank, particularly the Jordan Valley, as a security buffer for the Jewish state. To this end, Israel has “intensified its military presence by designating large swaths of land as military zones where Palestinians are barred from entering”.

Israel has long employed various expansive strategies, which have only been reinforced since 7 October, according to Basharat, which include the rapid and intensive construction of settlements and pressuring Palestinians by confiscating land, demolishing homes, and denying building permits in Areas B and C, effectively forcing Palestinians into overcrowded cities or “pushing them to migrate”.

A third aspect of Israeli policy includes a systematic approach to arrests and harassment under the guise of preemptive strikes to prevent the formation of any resistance movements, Basharat added.

“The aim is to seize as much land as possible, build and expand settlements, legalise outposts, and achieve the Israeli government’s political objective of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state”

“Finally, Israel uses a policy of targeted killings, justified as self-defence or suspicion of attacks, to impose deterrence through force and create a psychological barrier that perpetuates fear in the West Bank,” he said.

These strategies, along with the destruction of infrastructure such as water networks, sewage systems, roads, and communication lines, force Palestinians to focus on surviving and quietly rebuilding rather than pursuing political objectives, effectively “weakening the foundations of any potential future Palestinian state,” according to the analyst.

“These policies also weaken all Palestinian support bases in the West Bank, significantly weakening any nationalist movements that call for change,” he adds.

A harsh reality

Mohammad Abu Alaan, an expert in Israeli-Palestinian affairs, believes that what is happening in the West Bank is fundamentally an Israeli policy of “ethnic cleansing and territorial control”.

“The aim is to seize as much land as possible, build and expand settlements, legalize outposts, and achieve the Israeli government’s political objective of imposing hurdles on the ground that would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state in any future political solution,” he told The New Arab in an interview.

Since the formation of the far-right Israeli government before the war on Gaza, Israel has been committed to these policies, he added.

He pointed to Smotrich’s announcement of a new settlement in the Bethlehem area, which would act as a bridge between the settlements of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. This would “impose new hurdles on the ground” and “prevent any Palestinian geographic continuity”.

“In the past, announcements were made about expanding existing settlements or legalising outposts. Today, new settlements are being established – this represents an escalation in the annexation process,” Abu Alaan noted.

He also highlighted that Israel is exploiting the war on Gaza today to conduct a series of military operations in the West Bank aimed at crushing any pockets of resistance, facilitating the execution of its political plans, especially in areas classified as ‘C’ under the Oslo Accords.

Since 7 October, Israel has found itself with unprecedented support and a Western-backed mandate that has encouraged its settlement projects and tightened its security grip on the West Bank.

“From this perspective, it can be said that the future of the conflict in the West Bank is not directly tied to the war in Gaza. Instead, the war serves as a cover for accelerating measures and solidifying a reality that could shape the next phase of confrontation,” Abu Alaan said.