Israeli Settlement Timeline

The modern Israeli settlement timeline covers Israeli civilian communities established after the 1967 Six-Day War in territories then captured by Israel, along with communities in areas whose status and treatment differ across the sources: the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, and Golan Heights. The term “settlements” is not applied consistently to all these places, and the communities should not be treated as having identical histories or legal status.[1][2]

The chronology is marked by several distinct phases. Early settlement policy included security-oriented proposals and agricultural communities; from the late 1970s, construction expanded under Likud governments and alongside the growth of the religious Zionist Gush Emunim movement. Later periods brought suburban development, negotiations that left the issue unresolved, and withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza. Sources also describe changes in planning, construction, and population over time, while noting that totals depend on date and whether East Jerusalem and unauthorized outposts are included.[3][3]

This article describes major developments through 2026 as dated in the research sources. It reports differing legal positions and contested figures as positions or estimates rather than treating them as settled facts. In particular, settlement blocs discussed as possible components of future arrangements did not become an agreed final border.[3]

Following the 1967 war, Israel gained control of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem. Israeli civilians began establishing communities in several of these areas; early activity included paramilitary Nahal outposts, some of which later became civilian settlements, and civilian settlement building is dated to 1968 in one account.[1][4]

Sources identify different communities as the first postwar settlement, depending on territory and definition. The Times of Israel dates the founding of Merom Golan, originally Kibbutz Golan, to July 14, 1967, and calls it the first settlement in territory captured that year. A different account identifies Kfar Etzion, reestablished on September 27, 1967, as the first Israeli settlement in the West Bank after the war; the community had been destroyed in the War of Independence.[5][6]

A major early proposal for the West Bank was Yigal Allon’s plan, presented on July 26, 1967. It envisaged retaining parts of the Jordan Valley, with settlements and military installations acting as a buffer against a possible attack from the east. The plan was not officially adopted by the Israeli government. Other descriptions say it proposed a limited line of agricultural settlements in the Jordan Valley, as well as settlements around Jerusalem and near the Green Line, while envisaging an autonomous remainder of the West Bank under Jordanian administration.[7][8]

Accounts of Labor-era aims emphasize security and strategic positioning, though they describe the policy in different ways. One author characterizes the Allon concept as combining security, avoidance of settlement in heavily Arab-populated areas, and a two-state objective; another describes the plan’s strategic rationale as contributing to defense and defensible borders with Jordan. These are the authors’ accounts of the policy’s aims, not a single formal government settlement program.[9][8]

In the West Bank, Kfar Etzion’s reestablishment was followed by the 1968 episode in Hebron that led to Kiryat Arba. On April 4, Moshe Levinger and others entered a Hebron hotel while posing as Swiss tourists, seeking to establish a Jewish presence in the city. They said the next day that they would not leave; the government eventually allowed them to live at a nearby Israel Defense Forces base, which became Kiryat Arba.[10]

Settlement activity also began outside the West Bank. In Gaza, a government plan known as the “Five Fingers Plan” aimed to divide the Strip through five settlement blocs. Kfar Darom was established in 1970 as a Nahal outpost, with the stated purpose of reestablishing a community founded in 1946 and destroyed in the War of Independence; Netzarim followed in 1972. Further Gaza communities were established during the 1970s and 1980s, and some later absorbed evacuees from Sinai.[11]

A contemporary account of the Labor governments’ settlement pattern reports communities in the Jordan Valley, Golan Heights, Gaza, and Sinai, including 15 in the Jordan Valley, about 25 on the Golan, and 10 religious moshavim in Gaza. It names Maale Efraim, Katzrin, and Yamit among towns founded in the period. These figures and descriptions are the author’s and should be read as a particular account rather than a harmonized count.[9]

Labor governments held power from 1967 to 1977. An Institute for National Security Studies account says they established 22 settlements in the West Bank, especially in the Jordan Valley and Etzion bloc, as well as Kiryat Arba near Hebron. Some Nahal military outposts later became civilian communities. Another account counts 21 settlements established in the Jordan Valley and along Samaria’s eastern slopes during the decade, illustrating that totals vary with the area and category being counted.[3][12]

The 1973 Yom Kippur War was followed by changes in Israeli politics that helped religious Zionist and settler movements gain prominence, according to one analysis. The religious-nationalist Gush Emunim (“Bloc of the Faithful”) formed after the October 1973 war to promote settlement across the West Bank and Gaza. Its members saw settlement as a means of extending Israeli control over historic Greater Israel and criticized the Allon Plan as too limited; the Rabin government rejected their blueprint.[13][8]

The early West Bank pattern is described as concentrated in limited strategic locations, leaving room for possible future territorial compromise. Labor established Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim during this period, according to the Washington Institute analysis. At the same time, accounts describe increasing pressure for settlement in more densely populated parts of the West Bank, including the Sebastia episode in 1975, when settlers refused to leave until the government permitted the establishment of Elon Moreh.[13][5]

The 1977 election of Menachem Begin and the Likud government marked a major shift. In September of that year, Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon presented a plan for dozens of West Bank settlements to a ministerial committee. INSS says Likud governments decided over the following six years to build 103 settlements, though not all were constructed. Sharon’s plan described its goal as giving Israel’s coastal population centers “depth, and strengthen[ing] the corridor.”[3]

Population estimates also show rapid change during this transition. The Washington Institute estimates that about 13,000 settlers lived in the territories in 1977 and describes a shift toward communities near Palestinian population centers and suburban settlements near the pre-1967 Green Line. Published totals must be read with their geographic definitions, particularly whether East Jerusalem is counted separately.[13][3]

Settlement growth did not arise from ideological movements alone. Research on the period from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s highlights the Israeli Ministry of Housing’s role in establishing large, state-sponsored suburban communities. Its authors argue that metropolitan development and market-oriented economic policy, as well as ideological settlement movements, shaped expansion. More generally, the shift toward suburban communities offered relatively inexpensive large plots to people who continued working in the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem metropolitan areas.[14][8]

Settlement construction accelerated in the early 1980s after planning regulations and restrictions were lifted to facilitate suburban communities as an alternative to smaller agricultural settlements. Improved roads and transport during the 1980s and 1990s made communities in the West Bank more accessible to settlers moving for economic reasons. After the first National Unity government formed in 1984, the cabinet announced a freeze on new settlement activity, but expansion and consolidation of existing communities continued, including under later governments.[8]

Yamit, in Sinai, became a prominent case of settlement and withdrawal. Garin Yamit was founded in 1972 by Chaim and Sarah Feifel in Cincinnati, with the aim of establishing a community in Sinai; the first American settlers arrived in Yamit in early 1975. The Jewish Review of Books recounts Feifel explaining his decision to take part: “I’m not a spectator, I’m a ballplayer, I want to be where the action is.”[15]

The Egypt-Israel peace process led to the withdrawal from Sinai and evacuation of its Israeli settlements. The 1978 agreement was followed by the 1979 peace treaty, which set a timetable for withdrawal to the international border. The final evacuation occurred in April 1982, when Yamit was dismantled and the land was returned to Egypt.[16][15]

Some settlers opposed the evacuation, and the military used force to remove some residents from Sinai settlements. The withdrawal was completed in 1982 and later served as a precedent in discussion of possible evacuation in other territories.[1][16]

Other territorial developments in the period were distinct from the Sinai withdrawal. Israel applied its law to the Golan Heights in December 1981, an action the Congressional Research Service describes as an effective unilateral annexation. A news account reports that 28 Jewish settlements were already there, eight begun before 1969, and that about 6,000 Jewish residents lived in the Golan at the time; it says four of the 32 settlements there were established after the law was applied. Whether communities in the Golan count as “settlements” is itself described as disputed in some sources.[1][17]

The 1993 Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles began an interim process and left the future of West Bank and Gaza settlements to permanent-status negotiations. Its five-year interim framework envisaged incremental Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian population centers and transfer of administrative powers to a Palestinian Authority, while reserving settlements for final-status talks. Settlements were not designated for dismantling in the agreements described by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.[18][19]

The Oslo arrangements proceeded in stages. The initial Gaza and Jericho phase excluded external security, settlements, Israelis, and foreign relations from the powers transferred. The 1995 Oslo II agreement provided for further transfers and staged redeployment. In May 1994, the Cairo Agreement implemented the first phase, transferring control over Gaza and Jericho to the Palestinians. Under the 1995 arrangements, Area C remained under full Israeli control except for Palestinian civilians and included all West Bank settlements and their immediate vicinity, along with strategic areas, according to one account.[19][20]

The INSS account describes 1992–2005 as a period of “differentiation.” Israeli policy increasingly distinguished between settlement blocs viewed as candidates for inclusion in a future permanent arrangement and isolated communities in the mountain ridge and Jordan Valley, which could serve as bargaining chips. In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin distinguished security settlements from political settlements near Palestinian population centers, while saying all settlements would remain in place until a permanent arrangement. The idea of blocs did not constitute an agreed border or final-status outcome.[3]

Settlement construction continued during the Oslo period, and population figures increased substantially. A Washington Institute analysis estimates that between the 1993 signing and late 2000 the number of settlers doubled, reaching around 200,000 in the West Bank and 6,500 in Gaza; it gives separate counts of about 200 West Bank settlements and 16 in Gaza. A CRS report citing U.N. OCHA says the total settler population rose 63 percent between 1993 and 2004, an increase of more than 163,000.[21][22]

The exact totals depend on year and definition. A 2010 Jerusalem Post report, using its count of government-authorized settlements over the Green Line outside East Jerusalem, gives 47 settlements built from 1967 through 1979, 70 from 1980 through 1989, and five from 1990 through 1999. It says that from 1990 most construction and population growth took place within existing settlements and identifies Negahot as the last government-approved settlement, in 1999. Its definition excludes East Jerusalem and unauthorized outposts.[23]

The same report gives a population of 94,100 in the settlements it counted by 1991, then an increase of 209,800 between January 1992 and June 2010, a period in which it says the population tripled. Its provisional June 2010 figures were 122 West Bank settlements and 303,900 residents. The article also notes that recalibration of Central Bureau of Statistics data affected previously released figures for 2008 and 2009.[23]

The Oslo process did not settle the dispute over construction. The parties committed in 1999 to begin permanent-status talks, but Palestinians suspended them in December over settlement building in the territories. A 2013 account reports that the settler population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem had doubled since 1993 to more than half a million and describes continuing settlement construction as a central Palestinian criticism of the process.[24][25]

The Al-Aqsa intifada, which began in September 2000, was followed by security measures affecting settlement areas. These included bypass and controlled-access roads that enabled settlers to travel without driving through Palestinian towns and villages; the same account says the roads disrupted Palestinian movement. Construction of a security wall began in 2002, and the source characterizes it as implementing a policy of redrawing borders to include settlements on the Israeli side. These descriptions reflect the source’s interpretation of the measures and their effects.[8]

Ariel Sharon’s premiership brought the separation fence and disengagement to the center of settlement policy. INSS says Sharon sought an understanding with the U.S. administration under which Israel could build in existing settlement blocs while refraining from expanding settlements east of the fence. The account describes this as a political understanding, not an agreed final border. From 2006, the INSS analysis describes a “normalization” phase: Ehud Olmert treated the blocs as if annexed, accelerated construction authorization in them, and restricted construction beyond the fence in keeping with prior understandings with the U.S. administration.[3]

In December 2003, Sharon announced a unilateral disengagement proposal involving redeployment of forces and relocation of settlements. The plan covered all 21 settlements in Gaza and four small communities in northern Samaria. A Likud-member referendum on May 2, 2004, opposed the proposal, with 59.5 percent voting against it; the government approved an amended plan in early June by 14 votes to seven. The rationale reported in one account was to improve Israel’s security and international standing when no active political negotiations were under way.[1][26]

The government’s June 6, 2004, decision stated that continuation of the existing situation harmed Israeli interests and cited defense and security, diplomacy, and economic and demographic conditions among the plan’s aims. It specified that Israel would no longer settle Gaza, while anticipating that some key West Bank settlements would remain and become part of Israel. The plan was implemented in August and September 2005.[27]

Evacuations from Gaza began on August 17. Gaza’s settlements were evacuated by August 22, the four northern West Bank communities by August 23, and the Israel Defense Forces completed its departure from Gaza on September 12. INSS uses slightly different dates for the overall operation, reflecting a different definition of its beginning and completion.[28][1]

Contemporary sources generally place the affected population between about 8,500 and 9,000. CRS reported approximately 8,500 Israeli settlers in Gaza before the withdrawal, while an Israeli government map-history document described nearly 9,000 residents affected across 25 settlements.[1][29]

Another account estimates about 8,600 residents in the Gaza settlements, including roughly 3,500 children. The evacuation removed all settlements from Gaza and four from northern Samaria; most West Bank settlements remained.[1][11]

The Sinai withdrawal remained a point of comparison in discussions of the 2005 plan. The earlier evacuation removed communities as part of a peace agreement with Egypt, while the 2005 plan was unilateral. Accounts of the latter describe the removal of settlements and Israeli forces from Gaza, with the IDF completing its departure on September 12.[16][1]

After 2006, the INSS account describes construction as increasingly concentrated in settlement blocs and linked in part to housing provision, particularly for ultra-Orthodox residents. Development in isolated settlements was limited and often initiated locally. The same analysis says construction authorization in the blocs accelerated under Olmert, while construction beyond the separation fence remained restricted in accordance with the political understanding described above.[3][3]

In November 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a ten-month halt to new building starts and approvals for new residential construction in West Bank settlements. Direct negotiations began in the ninth month of the moratorium and broke down soon afterward.[30][31]

A committee appointed by Netanyahu and chaired by retired Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy recommended in 2012 that the government legalize most West Bank outposts. Ynet reports that the committee considered the settlements legal and concluded that Israel did not meet the international-law criteria for a military occupying power. Its recommendations were nonbinding, and the same report notes that the conclusions drew criticism as biased. The committee’s position is distinct from the international legal positions summarized below.[32]

In February 2017, the Knesset adopted the Law on the Regulation and Settlement in Judea and Samaria; the Library of Congress account identifies the law as dated February 13. It sought to provide rights of use and possession for certain settlement construction on land, including construction said to have been carried out in good faith or with state consent. On June 9, 2020, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled 8–1 that the law was unconstitutional, finding that it violated Palestinian residents’ property, dignity, and equality rights and failed the proportionality requirement.[33]

In 2023, a U.S. State Department human-rights report, citing the Israeli NGO Peace Now, reported that 12,349 housing units were advanced in West Bank settlements that year, described by Peace Now as its highest annual figure since it began tracking in 1993. The report also said 15 outposts previously illegal under Israeli law were legalized during the year.[34]

A CRS report updated in 2026 says Israel reportedly had 141 official West Bank settlements and 360 additional settlement outposts created without authorization under Israeli law, attributing the data to Peace Now. It also reports that a defense-ministry planning committee approved E1 construction plans in August 2025 and that media reports in April 2026 said the cabinet had approved dozens of new settlements in March. These are dated estimates and reports, not timeless totals.[35]

Britannica’s account describes a 2023 shift in administration of settlement activity from military control to a new political body, alongside a decline in law enforcement, a rise in outposts, and increased settler vigilantism against Palestinians. Its early-2025 estimate puts the settler population above 737,000, or 503,000 excluding East Jerusalem; its late-2025 account describes about 150 state-authorized settlements outside East Jerusalem and about 220 small unauthorized settlements. The figures differ from the CRS report’s 2026 counts, reflecting different dates and potentially different definitions.[2]

The timeline records a series of changing approaches rather than one unaltered settlement policy. Early communities and the Allon Plan were associated in several accounts with security and strategic considerations; Gush Emunim and the political shift after 1977 gave greater prominence to settlement across the West Bank and Gaza; later growth also reflected suburban planning and metropolitan housing demand. Policy subsequently distinguished between blocs and isolated communities, and the Oslo process reserved the issue for permanent-status negotiations.[8][8][14][3]

Withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza show that settlement communities were not permanent in every territory. Sinai’s evacuation took place under the peace agreement with Egypt and culminated in Yamit’s dismantling in 1982. In 2005 Israel removed all settlements from Gaza and four from northern Samaria. The two cases differ in context and process, but both feature in later discussion of withdrawal and settlement policy.[16][16][1]

The unresolved status of settlements has remained connected to negotiations, security, borders, and relations with international bodies. Oslo left the issue for final-status talks; the separation-fence-era understanding concerning construction in blocs was not an agreed border; and Resolution 2334 and the 2024 ICJ advisory opinion are reported alongside Israel’s differing legal arguments. This makes careful attention to dates, territorial scope, and source-specific definitions essential when interpreting settlement figures or proposals.[19][3][36][37]

The legal status of settlements is contested. The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies reports that Palestinians, U.N. bodies, and the European Union consider settlements contrary to Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, while Israel advances a different interpretation of that provision.[19]

A U.S. State Department legal-adviser opinion issued in 1978 and reproduced by the Jewish Virtual Library concluded that civilian settlements in territories controlled by Israel after the 1967 war were inconsistent with international law. The accompanying page notes that later U.S. administrations disagreed over that interpretation. Israeli arguments reported in the sources include that the West Bank is disputed rather than occupied, that no broadly recognized sovereign was displaced there in 1967, and that Article 49(6) was not intended to prohibit voluntary civilian settlement.[19][4]

On December 23, 2016, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 2334 by 14 votes in favor, none against, and one U.S. abstention. The resolution stated that Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had “no legal validity,” called for settlement activity to cease, and described the settlements as a “flagrant violation under international law.” This records the resolution’s position; it does not by itself resolve the broader legal dispute.[36]

The issue has continued in international legal proceedings. A Jerusalem Post account of the International Court of Justice’s July 19, 2024, advisory opinion says the court considered Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem unlawful and said Israel must end it; the opinion was nonbinding. The same article summarizes Israel’s contrary arguments: that the territories’ status remained unresolved and should be settled through negotiation, that Jordan’s sovereignty over the West Bank had not been broadly recognized, and that Article 49(6) was not intended to bar voluntary civilian settlement. These are reported legal positions, not an uncontested account.[37]

Legal and political terminology also varies by territory. Some sources include East Jerusalem in settlement counts or in the international dispute, while Israel disputes that Jewish neighborhoods and construction there constitute settlement activity. Whether communities in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights count as settlements is disputed, and most international observers do not recognize Israel’s unilateral application of sovereignty to those territories.[2][2]

The 2012 Levy Committee’s conclusions and Resolution 2334 illustrate the different positions reported in the sources: the committee considered settlements legal and rejected the characterization of Israel as an occupying power under the criteria it applied, whereas the Security Council resolution declared settlements in the territory to have no legal validity. Neither position should be confused with an agreed resolution of the dispute.[32][36]