Mediterranea Saving Humans
Peace Now report on West Bank
Post by Fr David Neuhaus SJ | 27 July 2026
While world attention was focused on Gaza, the Israeli authorities have been changing the status quo in the West Bank. As violence against Palestinians increases, ethnic cleansing of entire communities is stepped up, settler vigilantism escalates under military protection, the entire territory and its population are under continual threat.
A new report by Peace Now and Kerem Navot, titled Annus Mirabilis: Actions by the Israeli Government to Annex the West Bank, 2023–2025, published in May 2026, concludes that the current Israeli government has advanced de facto annexation of the West Bank at an unprecedented pace. Peace Now is the largest and longest-standing Israeli movement advocating for peace through public pressure (https://peacenow.org.il/en/). Kerem Navot is an organization that monitors and researches Israeli land policy in the West Bank (https://www.keremnavot.org/english).
The report documents the measures advanced by the Israeli government during this period and demonstrates how they form a single, systematic government policy aiming to deepen Israeli control over the West Bank and advance de facto annexation. Instead of focusing on isolated developments such as settlement construction, outpost authorization, or state land declarations, the report, for the first time, consolidates all government actions and demonstrates that they constitute a single policy. These include structural governance changes, the transfer of civilian powers, settlement expansion, new outpost establishment, expulsion of Palestinian communities, land takeovers, significant infrastructure investment, and changes to the land regime. The report demonstrates how these measures function together as part of a unified government policy.
Key Data from the Report
(A dunam is about a quarter of an acre or about 1000 square metres)
• In 2023–2025, 185 new outposts were established in the West Bank, approximately 130 of them farm outposts and “hilltops.”
• According to the report’s assessment, farm outposts currently effectively control more than 1,070,000 dunams — approximately 18% of the West Bank.
• In 2025 alone, approximately 300,000 dunams were added to the areas over which settlers took control through farm outposts.
• Only approximately 40% of the areas controlled by farm outposts are defined by the Civil Administration as “state land”; the remainder includes private land, waqf land, land not subject to formal land settlement, or areas whose status has not been mapped.
• In 2023–2025, 118 Palestinian shepherding communities and shepherding clusters were expelled, primarily as a result of settler violence, denial of access to pastureland and water, and the absence of effective protection by the authorities.
• During the government’s three years, plans for 40,064 housing units in settlements were advanced; in 2025 alone, 27,941 housing units were advanced — more than double the previous annual record.
• In 2023–2025, settlers took control of at least 11,520 dunams for agricultural purposes, through ploughing, planting, and denying Palestinians access to their lands.
• Since the government was formed, and even more so after October 7, 2023, at least 223 kilometres of new dirt roads have been opened across the West Bank, along with the upgrading of dozens of kilometres of existing roads.
• In 2023–2025, Israel declared 25,959 dunams as state land, nearly half of all land declared state land since the Oslo process began.
• The government decided to allocate NIS 244 million to initiate land settlement proceedings in the West Bank. The report warns that this could lead to large-scale dispossession of Palestinians from their lands.
Download the entire report here: