Alei Zahav

Alei Zahav lies just over the Green Line east of Rosh Haayin.[1] Located in Samaria, it falls within the Shomron Regional Council.[2][3] It is positioned in what the Washington Institute for Near East Policy classifies as the "Southeast Ariel Corridor," placing it among a cluster of communities in proximity to the city of Ariel.[4]

The community is part of the Ariel settlement bloc, which is described as spanning approximately 47 square miles and including roughly 37,000 settlers.[5] The Israeli government approved a security-barrier route encompassing the Ariel bloc on February 20, 2005; the bloc's portion remained incomplete when the cited account was published.[5]

Alei Zahav was founded in 1982.[6] A 2013 report identified it as a community within the Shomron Regional Council and noted that it was named for Aliza Begin, the wife of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin.[3] The report described a planning discussion involving 550 homes of 180 square meters each on 300 dunams of land, with a total planned built-up area — including public institutions — of 132,000 square meters; these were planning figures rather than a record of completed construction.[3]

Leshem, a neighborhood that was officially demarcated within Alei Zahav's municipal boundaries, was founded in 2013 and by 2019 had grown to approximately 130 families and 900 residents.[7] In 2025, Leshem was approved as an independent settlement, separating it administratively from Alei Zahav after years as one of its neighborhoods.[8]

Alei Zahav's population trajectory reflects rapid and sustained expansion. From 355 residents in 1999 and 458 in 2009, the community grew to 3,789 by 2020, 4,213 in 2021, 4,706 in 2022, 5,358 in 2023, 5,588 in 2024, and 5,751 in 2025.[6] The Washington Institute for Near East Policy recorded 251 immigrants to Alei Zahav in 2020, placing it among the settlements with the highest immigration that year, based on data drawn from the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics' 2021 statistical abstract.[4]

Growth has been particularly striking in percentage terms. Alei Zahav recorded a 24.5% growth rate in 2017, the highest among settlements in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley covered in one survey.[1] The following year, its population increased by 22.6%, again the highest rate among settlements examined in that report.[2]

Between 2015 and 2019, the Washington Institute report recorded a territorial expansion of 0.1088 square kilometers — a 12.6% increase — with 18 buildings added in newly incorporated territory.[4]

Sources characterize Alei Zahav as attracting mainly young families and as a mixed community of secular and religious residents.[2][9] A 2016 profile of resident Mali Gavra Bar-Haim described her participation in the Women Wage Peace movement after a local discussion. She also recounted that security rules requiring Palestinians to enter the community with special permission and armed accompaniment led an Arab woman who worked for her to resign.[9]

Infrastructure investment has accompanied the community's growth. In June 2026, Alei Zahav was among the central and western Samaria communities connected for the first time to the Gush Dan wastewater treatment system, a 136-million-shekel ($46.6 million) initiative intended to enable advanced treatment through the national system serving central Israel.[10]

The roads around Alei Zahav have been the site of several terrorist attacks targeting Israeli vehicles. On January 22, 2022, rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown at Israeli vehicles on the road between Alei Zahav and Burkin, west of Ariel; no casualties or damage were reported.[11] On February 2, 2023, rocks were thrown at an Israeli vehicle traveling between Brukhin and Alei Zahav, west of Salfit, damaging the vehicle but causing no injuries.[12]

On September 20, 2026, Netanel Shakron, a resident of Alei Zahav and father of six, was fatally shot at Ein Ria spring near Neve Tzuf in the Benjamin area.[13] He was found in his vehicle and was taken to Beilinson Hospital, where he was pronounced dead; his eldest son, who was present, was not harmed.[13] The attacker was captured at a hospital in Ramallah following a search of approximately three hours.[13] Subsequent reporting indicated that the attacker had visited the spring the previous day and that investigators believed he deliberately chose the period before Yom Kippur, when large numbers of people visited the site.[14] A military tracker shot and wounded the attacker, helping to protect Shakron's 16-year-old son, who was in the vehicle at the time.[14] A statement from Alei Zahav described the Shakron family as long-established in the community and called them an integral part of it.[14]

The status of Israeli communities in the West Bank, including Alei Zahav, is a subject of ongoing political dispute. The Anti-Defamation League defines settlements as Jewish communities established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after those territories came under Israeli control at the end of the 1967 war.[15] It states that Palestinians and some in the international community consider any Jewish neighborhood built in areas acquired in 1967, including East Jerusalem, to be a settlement, while Israel disputes treating Jewish neighborhoods and building in East Jerusalem as settlement activity.[15] No source consulted here provides a specific legal ruling concerning Alei Zahav itself. The National Library of Israel maintains a subject record for the locality under the heading "Ale Zahav (West Bank)."[16]