The two met on Wednesday, during which they agreed to retroactively legalize the outposts within 60 days of the government’s inauguration, according to Israeli media. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party said in a statement after a meeting with Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party that the two politicians had made “significant progress.” However, even if an agreement is made, there is no guarantee that it will pass the required number of votes in Israel’s parliament (Knesset) to be implemented. Among the outposts to be legalized under the plan is Homesh, a controversial settlement vacated in 2005, located between the Palestinian cities of Nablus and Jenin. It is located on Route 60 – the main north-south highway in the occupied West Bank, used by Palestinian and Jewish settlers. All Israeli settlements, including outposts, are illegal under international law. However, Israel considers only the outposts illegal under its own laws, arguing that they were built by individual settlers or groups of settlers, not the government. Dozens of reports by monitoring and rights groups have shown that the Israeli government provides infrastructure, support and funding to settlers to build outposts. In addition, the Israeli government has in recent years retroactively legalized many outposts and passed legislation making it easier. Netanyahu, who was ousted after 12 years in power in 2021, was formally tasked on Sunday by Israeli President Isaac Herzog to form a government. The Likud party and its ultra-nationalist allies, including Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionist alliance, won a clear majority in the November 1 election for the 120-seat Knesset. Palestinians in Nablus say the plans are extremely worrying, especially given the already tense reality on the ground since last year, with an increase in settler attacks. “The resettlement of Homesh, in particular, will spell disaster for Palestinians on the Nablus-Jenin road,” local journalist Shadi Jararah told Al Jazeera. “Right now, there are almost daily settler attacks on Palestinians on the main road 60, as well as on houses in Burka,” Jararah continued, referring to the Palestinian village next to Homesh. “The presence of settlers in Homesh and on the main road to Jenin will lead to higher tensions.” Jararah noted that due to the presence of settlements in the area and increasing armed attacks on soldiers and settlers in the area since last year, the Israeli army has placed three checkpoints on the main road, about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) between nearby Shavei Shomron settlement, and the outpost of Homesh. Since last year, the northern West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin have emerged as hubs of armed resistance to decades of Israeli occupation, with a marked increase in attacks on Israeli military bases, checkpoints, soldiers and settlers. Attacks have also spread to Salfit, Hebron and Jerusalem in recent weeks. On Tuesday, an 18-year-old Palestinian man carried out a car and knife attack near the illegal settlement of Ariel in Salfit in the northern occupied West Bank, killing three Israelis, before he was killed by Israeli forces. Legalization Homesh The Homesh outpost was originally built in 1978 as an Israeli military base on private Palestinian land before it was handed over to settlers in 1980. It was then evacuated in 2005 as part of then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “disengagement plan”. Legalizing Homesh would mean an amendment to the 2005 Disengagement Act to allow Jews to resettle the outpost. Despite the evacuation of the outpost, the Israeli army maintains a military base at the site and settlers are allowed access, even as Palestinian landowners are prohibited from doing so. In 2007, the settlers established a religious school, or ‘yeshiva’, at the outpost. The school continues to operate and settlers are allowed to camp, hold events and protest at the outpost, but are not allowed to have permanent homes. Israeli settlements are fortified residential complexes exclusively for Jews built on Palestinian land in violation of international law. More than 700,000 Israeli settlers live in at least 250 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. At their meeting on Wednesday, Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir also agreed to establish a religious school in the Evyatar outpost built on land from the Palestinian village of Beita. The settlers left Eyvatar last year. In a separate meeting on Tuesday with Smotrich, and after the Ariel attack, Netanyahu suggested the new government “seize the opportunity” to recognize unauthorized outposts, a Likud source told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Israeli politicians in the past have regularly and publicly announced new illegal settlement activity in response to Palestinian attacks. This is likely to extend to a government that includes the likes of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Ben-Gvir is notorious for harassing families in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and for raiding the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem. Last week, Israeli President Herzog’s comments were heard when he thought his microphone was off saying that “the whole world is worried” about Ben-Gvir’s positions. The newly elected lawmaker has previously been convicted of inciting racism, destroying property and supporting a “terrorist” organization – Meir Kahane’s outlawed Kach group. Ghassan Daghlas, head of monitoring settlement activity in the northern occupied West Bank for the Palestinian Authority (PA), said he believes conditions will worsen for Palestinians across the West Bank under the new government. “We expect this new government to take big decisions by legalizing outposts, building settlements, annexing more land, creating contiguity between settlements. They also want to build more and expand settler roads to bypass Palestinian villages,” Douglas, who is from Burqa, told Al Jazeera. In Burka and the Homs area, he continued, “we already live in a military zone, but this will lead to tension 24 hours a day.” “The settlers already have power over the soldiers, they are carrying out attacks during the day, holding rallies and blocking main roads by the hundreds,” Douglas said. “They did it before the election results, so you can imagine what it’s going to be like now.”
