Galilee Arab municipality says West Bank settlers erected an outpost on its land

Settlers from the West Bank have erected an outpost on state land within the jurisdiction of the Arab town of Majd al-Krum in northern Israel, the local council said Friday, warning of the “dangerous political context” as the government seeks to boost Jewish presence in the Galilee.

The Jewish National Fund, a Zionist organization that owns a large share of Israel’s land, confirmed to the Haaretz newspaper that it had leased the field solely for livestock herding, “not for the establishment of a farm to house youths.”

But footage from the area on Sunday showed the youths, clad in holiday white for Rosh Hashanah, had pitched tents, brought furniture and hung up lights.

Some 10 youths could be seen conducting a holiday prayer and eating a meal on a fold-out table, as police acted to disperse a protest by locals and politicians from the Arab-majority communist party Hadash.

Haaretz reported that there was no livestock in sight, and that one of the youths was previously filmed telling a Majd al-Krum representative that “as of now, there are no goats.”

In a joint statement Friday with Majd al-Krum’s popular committee — a type of local civic commission that operates in some Arab towns — the local council said the encampment “can’t be treated as a merely temporary presence or agricultural activity.”

“It imposes a new reality on the ground and harms the property rights of Majd al-Krum residents,” the statement said.

???? מתנחלים מקימים אוהלים גדולים על אדמות מג'ד אל-כרום בגליל. pic.twitter.com/fKMU3t9njw

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— Asslan Khalil (@KhalilAsslan) September 13, 2026

According to the statement, locals own “a large share of the land” in the vicinity and fear the encampment will prevent them from reaching their groves in the coming olive harvest season.

The statement also said the youths at the encampment had confirmed “they come from one of the settlements in the West Bank,” compounding the concerns of the Arab landowners.

“These developments come amid a dangerous political context, as official plans are stepped up to boost Jewish settlement and change the demographic reality in the Galilee,” the statement said.

Last month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich unveiled a pre-election plan to expand what he calls his settlement “revolution” from the West Bank to the Negev and Galilee. He explicitly described the initiative as a program to “Judaize” the regions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made similar statements, saying his government was working to expand Jewish settlement in the Negev and Galilee. He also said he had recruited a team “to bring the farms into the Negev and into the Galilee. In other words, to strengthen settlement [there].”

“Farms” is the term increasingly used by the settler movement to refer to illegal outposts established throughout the West Bank, often in the vicinity of Palestinian communities, as settlers seek to take control of land from Palestinians. Many attacks by violent extremist settlers have come from such wildcat outposts.

Dozens of Palestinian families have abandoned their homes in the West Bank in recent months amid repeated settler attacks, which take place on a daily basis but are rarely prosecuted.

In a video from the Sunday protest, Hadash party head Yousef Jabareen said the encampment in Majd al-Krum showed Smotrich’s plan was in effect.

“The plan is clear: Seizing the land, preventing the expansion of Majd al-Krum, confiscation of nearby Arab lands and the erection of a settler outpost,” he said, vowing to fight Smotrich’s “fascist” designs.

Hadash MK Ofer Cassif, who was also at the protest, said on X that the encampment replicated in Israel tactics used to drive Palestinians off their land in the West Bank.

“What I saw with my own eyes on the lands of Majd al-Krum is the creeping ‘transfer,’ copied from the West Bank into the State of Israel,” Cassif said, referring to the expulsion of Palestinians.