Dozens of settlers moved into eight homes on the border of Jericho, in the village of Ein Diouk al-Tahta, on Wednesday after secretly coordinating their purchase with the Binyamin Regional Council, the Nachala Movement announced in collaboration with the council.
The homes are located just meters from the Palestinian Authority-controlled city, which lies in Area A of the West Bank. However, they are technically in Area C, which is under Israeli military and civil control.
Peace Now, an advocacy movement promoting a two-state solution, alleged that around 30 settlers arrived at noon on Wednesday to take control of the homes and noted that there were unverified reports of violence. The organization added that the new settlement poses security challenges for Palestinian residents of the city, who have allegedly already been targeted by settlers in nearby outposts.
On Thursday morning, the Palestinian Authority’s WAFA news agency reported that settlers attacked Palestinians in Deir al-Dik al-Tahta, west of Jericho, wounding three people after spraying them with pepper spray and beating them.
“Establishing a settlement inside Jericho poses a security threat and constitutes a geopolitical disaster that must not be allowed to happen. This move is designed to deepen friction and violence, entrench an apartheid regime, and foreclose any possibility of a future political agreement. A settlement in Jericho will create additional flashpoints and trigger further violence, while dragging the military into unnecessary and life-threatening missions whose sole purpose is to protect a handful of messianic extremists bent on dragging Israel into the abyss,” Peace Now said in a statement.
“A caretaker government that has not received a mandate from the public has no authority to impose such far-reaching political and security realities on the ground. The IDF must, therefore, evacuate the new settlement in Jericho immediately.”
The outpost has also drawn criticism from the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian National Council head Rouhi Fattouh condemned what he described as Israeli citizens’ “seizure” of the eight properties, claiming the move amounted to terrorism and would push the region and the world “towards more conflicts and violence by encouraging colonialism, confiscating land, and imposing displacement in blatant defiance of international law and signed agreements.”
Palestinian law labels selling land to Jews as act of treason
Nachala has rejected the characterization of the purchases as a seizure, maintaining that it legally purchased the properties. However, Palestinian law treats the sale or lease of land to Israeli Jews as an act of treason, which can carry the death penalty.
In 2019, a Nablus court sentenced a Palestinian man to five years in prison for attempting to sell land to Israeli Jews. In 2018, a Qalqilya court sentenced two Palestinian men to 15 years of hard labor for their involvement in a network seeking to transfer West Bank land to Israeli Jews.
Daniella Weiss, the founder of the Nachala Movement, said, “These homes in Jericho mark the end of the Oslo Accords that caused so many casualties. We are now… opening a new era.”
Settlement and National Missions Minister Orit Strock said: “Settlement in Jericho is the continuation of the process of repairing the damage caused by Oslo. Jericho is the lock of the Land of Israel. This is where the cursed Oslo Accords began, and now, we have reached this root and are making it bloom again.
“The next step is returning to Gaza. On the eve of Shabbat Chayei Sarah, we can say that our forefather Abraham is very proud of his successors: those redeeming the land of Israel by paying its full price and settling it.”
Notably, Jericho was the first city handed over to the PA in May 1994, following the signing of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement.
Binyamin Regional Council head and Yesha Council chairman Israel Ganz said: “Thirty-two years after ‘Gaza and Jericho first,’ we proudly say: We have returned to Jericho! Thank you to Daniella Weiss and the Nachala Movement for their determination and partnership, which turned the dream into reality, and to Minister Orit Strock, who came to strengthen the families on the very day they moved in. We will continue to build and settle the Land of Israel.”
Combatants for Peace claims IDF escorted settlers into homes
A representative from Combatants for Peace, an NGO promoting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, told The Jerusalem Post that the development was “particularly disturbing,” alleging that the IDF escorted the settlers into the homes.
“This is especially jarring during the harvest season, when the Israeli authorities, led by the army and the Civil Administration, do everything in their power to prevent approximately 100,000 Palestinian families who depend on the olive crop from reaching their lands and harvesting their olives,” the CfP representative said.
“The establishment of the outpost in Ein Diuk Thahta is another license for the terror of the settlers in the area, who in July-August repeatedly attacked the residents of the area and their property and even destroyed Palestinian homes. This is another step by a government that deepens the occupation and its injustices, supports settler terror and fuels the fire in the region, and expands more and more settlements that are changing the face of the region in an attempt to thwart any possibility of a future peaceful political solution.”
However, the IDF confirmed in a statement to the Post that entry into the homes was done without prior coordination with the military and “without permission.”
“The acquisition process and the security implications derived from it are now being clarified by the relevant parties,” the military confirmed.