Building ongoing at 4 West Bank outposts, NGO alleges
Peace Now claims illegal construction continues in sites located outside of settlements
Amid a recent political dispute over a purported unofficial settlement freeze, construction is continuing in four outposts in the West Bank, according to left-wing NGO Peace Now.
Hagit Ofran, who heads Peace Now’s settlement watch program, said construction is ongoing at Nahalat Yosef, Nahalei Tal, Tzofim North and Ma’ale Amos West, all located in West Bank territory under Israeli civil and security control, known as Area C.
Recent photographs taken by Peace Now show construction and development on the ground in all four locations, along with vehicles transporting building structures.
Nahalat Yosef is east of Nablus, outside the settlement of Elon Moreh; Nahalei Tal is north of Talmon settlement, outside of Ramallah; Tzofim North is near of the Palestinian city of Qalqilya and adjacent to the Tzofim settlement; and Ma’ale Amos West is a few hundred meters west of the Ma’ale Amos settlement, south of Bethlehem.
The Civil Administration confirmed illegal building at three of the four sites — Nahalat Yosef, Nahalei Tal and Tzofim North — but said construction at Ma’ale Amos West was legal and part of a master plan.
The IDF’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories said in a statement sent to The Times of Israel that demolition orders have been issued for all illegal construction in Nahalat Yosef, Nahalei Tal and Tzofim North.
“The rest of the enforcement process will be completed in accordance with the protocols,” the statement read, indicating the orders are now under judicial review.
Outposts are settlement communities built without government approval, and are considered by Israeli authorities to be illegal or unauthorized.
While the international community considers all settlements in the West Bank illegal, roughly 500,000 Israelis currently live beyond the pre-1967 frontier in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Israel considers construction in those communities legal as long as it is properly licensed.
Construction beyond the Green Line strikes a sensitive chord with Palestinians and the international community, who believe it reduces the chances of a contiguous, viable Palestinian state.

Settler leaders have recently complained of an unspoken government freeze in approvals of construction in the West Bank.
Two weeks ago, Israeli officials were reportedly set to grant permits for 906 housing units in the West Bank — which would have been the first public sanctioning of West Bank construction in over a year — but never made any announcement regarding those units.
The first official public announcement came last Wednesday when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved 300 units in Beit El after two illegal apartment buildings in the settlement were demolished by order of the High Court.
New construction or natural growth?
Ofran of Peace Now said that while settler leaders may claim that the new construction is merely an expansion of existing settlements, the outposts in fact amount to entirely new settlements due to their distance from the original communities.
And, she alleged, at least in one case, Tzofim North, the goal was to obstruct a change in the route of the security barrier that was mandated by the court. The security barrier, which runs roughly along the Green Line that distinguishes Israel from the West Bank, aims to protect Israelis from Palestinian terror attempts; critics say that it constitutes a land grab in places where it deviates substantially from the Green Line to include Israeli settlements.
“This is part of a calculated strategy to extend the settlements without attracting the world’s attention,” Ofran said. “They would say it is a ‘new neighborhood of an existing settlement.’ And by that there is no need for a planned decision for the government to call it a new settlement. Although if you go [to Tzofim North], you will see it is more than 500 meters away from Tzofim and is a separate community. It’s a way to build more and bypass the accusation of building new settlements.”
A spokesperson for the Binyamin Regional Council, the region where Tzofim North is located, denied such motivation for the ongoing construction.
“I’m not surprised that Peace Now would say that,” Miri Maoz-Ovadia said. “They have very clearly demonstrated their intentions for some time to destroy our communities in Judea and Samaria.”
Maoz-Ovadia cited natural population growth as the primary reason for new construction within existing settlements.
Peace Now argues that Tzofim North was an attempt to prevent a court-ordered rerouting of the security barrier in that area. In 2012, the year Tzofim North was inaugurated, the High Court of Justice wrote in a decision that “an overall plan to expand the Israeli settlement cannot be a dominant reason” in planning the route of the fence, which under law can only be routed in accordance with security requirements. The barrier’s route must leave much of the land slated for construction on the Palestinian side of the divide, the court said.
But building the fence according to its new court-ordered route will require the demolition and removal of Tzofim North.
That same year, Dani Dayan, then head of the settlement umbrella group Yesha Council, denounced the suggestion that Tzofim North was built to interfere with the proposed route of the security barrier, claiming that the site was within Tzofim’s municipal boundaries.
Like Tzofim North, both Nahalat Yosef and Nahalei Tal were also established in 2012.
Soon after initial construction, the mobile homes on site were equipped with, electricity, water and air conditioning. Some have since paved asphalt roads.
Ma’ale Amos West, the only site of the four which the Civil Administration is considering legalizing post factum, is also the newest of the four sites; the first caravan arrived in 2013. Photographs taken by Peace Now in March show the site still in early stages of development.
Ofran said that construction at any of the sites, however, could not have taken place without governmental approval. “The very practice of having a committee convene and discuss the planning of sites requires the Defense Minister’s approval,” she said.
Davidi Perl, head of the Gush Etzion Regional Council, said that the proper authorities did in fact approve the construction at Ma’ale Amos West, which is situated within his Regional Council’s geographic boundaries.
He also specified that the only current construction at Ma’ale Amos West (also known as Ibei Hanachal) is for industrial and business facilities, not for homes.
“Any building that is going on is building that was issued by the Defense Ministry,” he said. “We are not allowed to build homes so we don’t. All the building we are doing is for industrial development, and for that we have approval.”
The ministry did not respond to a request for comment.