The next frontier: Violence by Israeli civilians against Palestinians in Areas A and B
Masked settlers set fire to agricultural land in Beit Furik in the Nablus area, July 2026. Beit Furik is divided between Areas B and C
Yesh Din introduces its new report ‘The Next Frontier’ on 21 August 2026:
Until recent years, Israel’s settlement project in the West Bank focused on Area C, which makes up 60% of the West Bank. This persistent land-grab project has always gone hand in hand with severe violence against Palestinians, intended to push them off their land, terrorize them and entrench Israeli control over the area. Over the years, this violence has enjoyed the backing and support of the State of Israel and its institutions.
Since 2024, outposts have been spreading into Area B, and their number now exceeds 20. More recently, outposts have also begun to be established in Area A. The expansion into Area B is publicly supported by senior ministers and actively provided with protection, backing and funding by the Israeli government, the military and other official bodies.
As outposts encroached into new areas, settler violence extended its reach as well. Yesh Din data from 2025 and 2026 show that a growing share of the settler violence incidents documented by the organization now occur in Areas A and B. In 2026, about two-thirds (62.7%) of the incidents of violence against Palestinians documented by Yesh Din took place in Areas A or B.
*** The map shows the locations of 225 incidents of settler violence documented by Yesh Din in 2025–2026, alongside the division into Areas A, B, and C and the locations of West Bank outposts. Information on the locations of the outposts is provided courtesy of Peace Now ***
The expansion of Israeli settlements means more Palestinians – in communities, towns and villages that previously had no direct contact with outposts and settlers – are now subjected to violence. This deeper territorial penetration comes with visibly increased military presence and activity, and with them institutionalized repression and violence. In parallel, Palestinians are denied access to ever-larger tracts of land, whether due to settler and military violence or official military closure orders ostensibly intended to prevent “friction.” As grazing and agricultural areas diminish, Palestinians’ rights to livelihood and freedom of movement are degraded.
This Israeli strategy, implemented in part through the expansion of outposts and the settler violence launched from them into new areas, pushes Palestinian residents into the centers of towns and villages and empties surrounding areas of Palestinian presence. In doing so, it advances Israel toward the realization of a policy, already reflected in ministers’ public statements, that seeks to annex as much West Bank territory as possible with as few Palestinians as possible living there. The path to this goal is paved with systematic, organized criminality, backed and supported by state institutions, revealing a clear intent: to make the area Palestinian free, in other words, to carry out ethnic cleansing.