Migdalim

Migdalim is a communal settlement affiliated with Amana and administered by the Samaria Regional Council.[2][4] It lies southeast of Nablus, near the road connecting it with Tapuah Junction.[1] The settlement entrance is near the Trans-Samaria highway, east of Ariel.[5]

The locality's name is a Hebrew translation of the name of the nearby Arabic locality Majdal.[2] Its government grid reference is 1825.1663, and its locality code is 3751.[2][7] Migdalim is classified as a rural community in Samaria beyond the pre-1967 borders and as represented in the Shomron Regional Council.[4]

Published references differ on Migdalim's founding year. Two list 1983.[2][4] Another lists 1984.[3] In 2002, Migdalim was described as one of the secular settlements in central Samaria during a period when security concerns contributed to departures from settlements and falling real-estate prices.[8] One resident, identified as Avi, left because of the security situation but retained his home, saying that he would return if there were peace.[8]

Two IDF soldiers were killed in a shooting attack near Migdalim in January 2005.[1] The attack was attributed to a Hamas squad in the Nablus area that was exposed in October 2007 and had carried out several shooting attacks against Israeli targets around Nablus.[1]

On March 1, 2006, Eldad Avir, a 48-year-old Migdalim resident, was murdered in a terrorist shooting attack at the gas station at the settlement entrance.[5] Two terrorists approached him on foot and fired at close range; the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility and described the attack as retaliation.[5] At the time, a resident described Migdalim as a small community of 38 families whose members knew one another well.[5]

On April 19, 2023, shots were fired at an Israeli bus traveling on the road between Tapuah Junction and Migdalim.[1] No injuries were reported, but bullet holes were found in the bus, and IDF forces searched the area for the shooters.[1]

Migdalim's population was recorded as 151 on December 31, 2004.[4] A separate settlement population series gives 150 residents in 1999, 137 in 2009, 460 in 2020, and 519 in 2021.[3] That series records 565 residents in 2022, 674 in 2023, 758 in 2024, and 880 in 2025, with its latest figures labeled as of January 1, 2026.[3]

The government locality dataset gives a total population of 592 for 2022, including 579 Jews and 592 residents in the combined “Jews and others” category.[7] This is a different 2022 total from the 565 recorded in the settlement population series.[3][7]

In 2017, a resident involved in drafting a statement by secular members of the community estimated that Migdalim had about 110 families, approximately 30 percent of them secular.[6] He said that the proportion had changed substantially over the preceding five years.[6]

Migdalim was described as a small, secular settlement in 2006.[5] By 2017, changes in its secular and religious composition had become a source of internal tension, with an author of a secular residents' statement characterizing the influence of newer residents as a “takeover.”[6] The statement's authors emphasized that they did not object to religious residents as such and declared: “We fly the flag of tolerance, equality and reciprocity.”[6] The statement had been approved by 40 other secular residents before publication.[6]

A fatal clash during a 2017 bar mitzvah hike near Qusra intensified divisions within Migdalim.[6] The IDF's initial account said that an armed escort from Migdalim fired after Palestinians threw stones, killing 48-year-old Mahmoud Za’al Odeh; local human-rights activists said Odeh had been working in his field and that the stone-throwers arrived later.[6] Police questioned the shooter on suspicion of negligent manslaughter, while the defense minister characterized the shooting as self-defense and the settlers' lawyers disputed the investigation.[6]

The broader legal dispute over West Bank settlements concerns Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Palestinian self-determination, alongside Israeli counterarguments about the Convention's applicability and interpretation and the Green Line's status as an agreed border.[9] Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted on December 23, 2016, by 14 votes with the United States abstaining, described settlements in territory occupied since 1967 as having “no legal validity”; Israeli counterarguments include the position that Security Council resolutions do not themselves create international law.[10] In 2019, the United States changed its position on whether settlement activity was inconsistent with international law, while the European Union reaffirmed its view that it was illegal; the American announcement expressly avoided judging any individual settlement's legal status.[11]