What "settlements" means

What it is

A settlement is an Israeli civilian community built past the Green Line, on land Israel took in June 1967. The word means towns and neighborhoods, with houses, schools, supermarkets, and municipal bus lines.

Counting them is where the trouble starts. Peace Now, the Israeli group that tracks settlement construction, documents 146 officially established settlements in the West Bank outside East Jerusalem as of August 1, 2026. ¹ Israel Policy Forum puts the number of legally recognized settlements at 127. ⁶ The Jewish Virtual Library counts 128 communities. ⁴ The gap comes from definitions. A "neighborhood" attached to an existing settlement may or may not get counted as its own place, and so may an outpost the government legalized last year.

Population counts split the same way. Peace Now reports more than 3 million people living in the West Bank as of the end of 2023, about 85% of them Palestinian, which puts the non-Palestinian share at roughly 450,000. ¹ The Jewish Virtual Library puts the settler figure at nearly 500,000. ⁴ Both numbers exclude East Jerusalem, which Israeli law treats differently. The Jewish Virtual Library also notes that about 71% of settlers live in five large blocs close to the 1949 armistice line, and that settlement blocs sit on less than 2% of West Bank land. ⁴

Israeli law draws a line the outside world usually doesn't. An authorized settlement requires a government resolution, state land, and building permits. ⁶ An outpost has none of those. It is built without government authorization or permits, frequently on privately owned Palestinian land, and it is illegal under Israeli law as well as international law. ⁶ The current wave of outposts started in 1993, when Yitzhak Rabin's government froze new settlement construction during Oslo and activists went around the freeze by building anyway. ⁶ A 2005 Israeli government report found state institutions had been quietly funding and servicing outposts the state had never approved. ⁶ Israel Policy Forum counts roughly 200 outposts against those 127 authorized settlements, with 21 outposts retroactively legalized over the years. ⁶

East Jerusalem is its own category. Israel did not leave it under military administration. The Knesset passed Basic Law: Jerusalem in 1980, declaring that "The complete and united Jerusalem is the capital of Israel," and defining the city's limits to include the area added in the municipal expansion of June 28, 1967. ⁵ A later amendment bars transferring any authority over that territory to a foreign power, and locks that clause behind a majority of 80 members of the Knesset. ⁵ So a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem is, under Israeli law, part of the capital. Under the UN Security Council's reading it is a settlement in occupied territory, and Resolution 2334 names East Jerusalem when it says so. ²

The legal fight turns on one sentence. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, concluded August 12, 1949, ends: "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." ³ The Security Council's position, restated in Resolution 2334 on December 23, 2016, is that Israeli settlements in territory occupied since 1967, East Jerusalem included, have "no legal validity" and constitute "a flagrant violation under international law." ² The same resolution reaffirms Israel's obligations as "the occupying Power" under that Convention. ²

Israel's answer has three parts. Morris Abram, who worked on the Convention, argued Article 49 was written against Nazi deportations and forced eviction for extermination, not against people who move somewhere voluntarily. ⁴ Eugene Rostow, the former undersecretary of state and Yale Law dean, held that the Jewish right of settlement in the area is equal in every way to the local population's right to live there. ⁴ Eugene Kontorovich argues a new state inherits the borders of the prior geopolitical unit, which here was the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, and the Mandate included the West Bank. ⁴ All three rest on the same claim, that there was no legitimate sovereign in the West Bank in 1967 for Israel to be occupying it from.

Why it still matters

In 2025 the Israeli government approved 54 new settlements, against a previous annual record of nine set in 2023. ⁷ Of those 54, twenty-six were existing outposts granted retroactive legalization, fourteen were entirely new, and fourteen more were new "neighborhoods" of existing settlements. ⁷ Another 86 outposts went up the same year, 58 of them farming outposts. ⁷ Planning authorities advanced 27,491 housing units, close to double the 2023 record of 14,623. ⁷

Negotiators watch a corridor east of Jerusalem called E1. ⁷ Prime Minister Netanyahu announced roughly 3 billion shekels, about $970 million, for infrastructure there, including at least 3,400 housing units, as a western extension of Ma'ale Adumim. ⁷ Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said a new highway linking settlements to central Israel "changes the reality on the ground and imposes de facto sovereignty" and called it "a targeted assassination of the idea of a Palestinian state." ⁷

Settlements sit at the center of every negotiation because the diplomatic framework and the construction schedule point in opposite directions. Resolution 2334 states the Council will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, Jerusalem included, other than changes the parties agree to through negotiations. ² It also recalls the Quartet Roadmap obligation for Israel to freeze all settlement activity including "natural growth," and to dismantle every outpost erected since March 2001. ² Neither has happened. Meanwhile Basic Law: Jerusalem makes any transfer of authority over East Jerusalem require 80 votes in a 120-seat Knesset, a threshold no Israeli coalition has come close to. ⁵

Our view: the authorized blocs near the Green Line are a solvable problem, since 71% of settlers live in five of them on a small share of the land. ⁴ The outposts are a different matter, and a state that bankrolls what its own law calls unlawful spends down credibility it will need for the arguments it is right about. Israel's own law says outposts are illegal, and a 2005 government report found state institutions funding and servicing them anyway. ⁶ Twenty-six of them were legalized in 2025. ⁷

The words you'll hear

The Green Line. The 1949 armistice line separating Israel from the West Bank before 1967, and the reference point Resolution 2334 calls the "4 June 1967 lines." ²

Outpost. A settlement built without government authorization or permits, often on private Palestinian land, illegal under Israeli law as well as international law. ⁶

Retroactive legalization. The process by which the Israeli government converts an illegal outpost into an authorized settlement or a neighborhood of one. Twenty-six outposts were legalized this way in 2025. ⁷

Blocs. The five large settlement concentrations near the Green Line where roughly 71% of settlers live, on what the Jewish Virtual Library describes as less than 2% of West Bank land. ⁴

Article 49. The Fourth Geneva Convention provision barring an occupying power from transferring its own civilian population into occupied territory. ³

E1. The area east of Jerusalem slated as a western extension of Ma'ale Adumim, with at least 3,400 planned housing units and about $970 million in announced infrastructure spending. ⁷

Basic Law: Jerusalem. The 1980 Israeli law declaring united Jerusalem the capital and requiring 80 Knesset members to approve any transfer of authority over the city. ⁵