Government allocates NIS 50 million for illegal, often violent settlement outposts
Funds will be used for security equipment such as ATVs and drones, often used by settler extremists to harass rural Palestinian communities as well as access roads to outposts
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
Amid a massive surge in violence by extremist settler activists in the West Bank in recent weeks and months, the government has approved some NIS 50 million ($16 million) to provide security equipment for illegal settlement outposts established by such extremists.
The money has been allocated through “Coalition Funds,” discretionary funds allocated by coalition parties to their funding priorities which are approved alongside the state budget, but which are not subject to clear criteria.
The funds will be used to purchase critical security equipment and infrastructure for illegal outposts, which are often run and inhabited by the extremist settlers responsible for violence and harassment against rural Palestinian communities.
The funds will also be used for the construction of roads to enable access and development of such outposts.
The left-wing Peace Now organization has described the funding, which has been a feature of the current government’s various avenues of support for illegal outposts, as critical to ensure the existence and viability of such wildcat settlements.
The NIS 50 million for the illegal outposts is just one budget line from a total of NIS 395.5 million shekel allocated in the coalition funds to the Settlements and National Missions Ministry headed by Minister Orit Strock. These funds are in addition to the approximately NIS 1.3 billion allocated to the ministry in the formal state budget.
Illegal outposts are settlement dwellings that have not received approval from the cabinet. According to Peace Now, fully 191 outposts have been established under the current government, some 130 of which are farming outposts that use livestock to assert control over large areas of West Bank land.
Although the outposts themselves are illegal, the Attorney General’s Office has approved the allocation of funding for security equipment for these illegal settlements on the basis that they are portable and do not require building permits.
In recent years, government funding for outposts from coalition funds has included all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), floodlights, night vision goggles, drones, communications equipment, camera posts, fire suppression trailers, water trailers and generators.
ATVs and drones in particular are used by illegal farming outposts to patrol and conduct surveillance over the land they use for pasturing their livestock, and are also frequently used to harass rural Palestinian communities.
Such outposts are often run and inhabited by the very extremists who are responsible for much of the violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, according to testimony from Palestinians living close to such wildcat settlements, and Israeli human rights organizations monitoring settler violence.
The money for security equipment for illegal outposts is routed by the Settlements Ministry through the World Zionist Organization’s Settlements Division. The Settlements Division then allocates the funds according to requests for such funding from West Bank settlement municipal authorities for the outposts in their municipal jurisdictions.
The Defense Ministry and the IDF’s Central Command are responsible for determining which illegal outposts are eligible for the security equipment.
Strock, together with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, staged two ceremonial events last year in which they awarded this equipment to activists running illegal outposts. One ceremony was held at the illegal outpost of Meitarim Farms, run by extremist settler Yinon Levi who is under international sanctions, a suspect in the killing of Palestinian activist Awdah Hthaleen, and has been accused of displacing local Palestinian communities.
The other ceremony was held at Sde Ephraim, which was an illegal farming outpost until June 2024 when it was retroactively legalized by the government.
בסרטון: המתנחל ינון לוי מפחיד ומבריח כבשים בזנותא להנאתו.
אחד הקשיים הכואבים של הקהילות המגורשות הוא חוסר בשטחי מרעה. תושבי זנותא הנם הבעלים של מעל ל-10,000 דונם של אדמות מרעה פרטיות מסביב לכפר, אליו חזרו לאחר כ-10 חודשים בהם חיו כפליטים עם גישה מוגבלת למרעה. https://t.co/h21PzdHSWd pic.twitter.com/KwUwEhSDso— מחוץ לעדר/ kivsa shchora (@masafering) September 8, 2024
Alongside the NIS 50 million for security equipment, another NIS 45 million has been allocated for “Assistance to local authorities in securing Area C.” Some of these funds are used to enable West Bank settlement authorities to track illegal Palestinian construction in Area C of the West Bank.
But Peace Now says that some of the funds are also used to build new roads in the territory, supposedly for security purposes. Such funds have also been used in the past to build access roads to outposts, the organization says.
Speaking in the Knesset on Wednesday, The Democrats MK Gilad Kariv called for the demolition of illegal outposts, and “to clearly and sharply end the flow of government resources used to equip lawbreakers” in the outposts.
לגינויים אין שום ערך.
המבחן היחיד מול האלימות הלאומנית הוא מעשים.אלה הצעדים שהצגתי למאבק במיליציות שצומחות ביהודה ושומרון. pic.twitter.com/zsFFyUm1HC
— גלעד קריב (@KarivGilad) March 25, 2026
Peace Now condemned the new allocation of funds to the illegal outposts, asserting that it showed the government represented “a small minority of settlers,” and not the national interest.
“Instead of focusing on the country’s security and future, the government continues to push toward annexation while diverting state resources to serve a messianic vision,” the left-wing group said. Shamelessly, the government is increasing the funds it directs to terror hubs in [illegal settlement] outposts and farms — bringing disaster upon us all.”
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