Settler activists removed from at least four illegal West Bank outposts

Border Police forces and personnel from the Civil Administration department of the Defense Ministry remove settler activists from illegal outposts and encampments they had established in closed military zones in the West Bank.

MK Limor Son Har Melech of the ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit party arrived at one of the encampments to protest its evacuation, and strongly criticized the enforcement action.

According to a spokesperson for the activists, the inhabitants of four such outposts were removed and their inhabitants forced to leave the closed military zone.

The Civil Administration denied, however, that any illegal settlement outposts had been “evacuated” during the course of Sunday, saying instead merely that the closed military zone orders had been enforced and that no buildings had been demolished.

A spokesperson for the Civil Administration declined to say how many such orders had been enforced during the course of the day.

Outpost “evacuation” typically includes the destruction of any buildings at the site. The spokesperson for the settler activists said that at the “majority” of the four sites today, the inhabitants of the outposts had been removed but buildings had not been knocked down, describing Sunday’s enforcement action as a preliminary step before demolition.

Son Har Melech went to an encampment close to the Gur Aryeh illegal settlement outpost in the Benjamin region in the central West Bank and claimed that the police were removing the settlers from the closed military zone but not Palestinian Bedouin she alleged were dwelling in the same area.

She claimed that after she left, the security forces used knives to destroy sheets and mattresses belonging to the settler activists.

According to the activists, long-term closed military zone orders were imposed at four sites, including the outpost next to Gur Aryeh as well as the outposts of Mikne Avraham in the Gush Etzion district, Mevaser Shalom in the Samaria district, and Kol Mevaser in the Benjamin District.

Sunday’s enforcement action comes following a report by Channel 12 News that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently ordered the evacuation of 14 illegal settlement outposts.

A spokesperson for Netanyahu and a senior government official both denied the report, however.

למרות ההכחשות של ״גורמים מדיניים״ בנוגע לפינויים, ירדתי לשטח ונתקלתי במציאות אחרת לגמרי. נקלעתי לפשיטה של מג״ב איו״ש (הכפופים לשר במשרד הביטחון ולאלוף הפיקוד) בגבעת גור אריה בבנימין והמראה היה מקומם.

המגבניקים הציגו בפניי צו שטח צבאי סגור, אלא שבאותו שטח בדיוק עומדים באין מפריע… pic.twitter.com/V2GB7C8t5w

— לימור סון הר מלך (@limor_sonhrmelh) December 7, 2025