Israel reoccupies the colony of Kadim in the West Bank, 21 years later

BarcelonaIsraeli settlers have re-established the settlement of Kadim, in the north of occupied the West Bank, twenty-one years after it was dismantled as part of the partial withdrawal agreement of 2005. The measure, illegal under international law, comes after several countries have criticized the accelerated colonization of Palestinian territory, and in full campaign for the elections of October 27. Thirty "pioneering families" arrived on Thursday at the settlement from Tel Aviv, according to the regional settlers' council, driven by the wave of supremacism promoted by Benjamin Netanyahu's executive.

The settlers arrived in small groups, some under military escort, with Israeli flags waving on their cars as they crossed Palestinian villages and cultivated fields. Others dragged trailers loaded with bedding, furniture, and construction materials. The move responds to a governmental decision: the revocation of the ban on building Jewish colonies around the city of Jenin, which until December 2024 was a bastion of Palestinian resistance in the West Bank. Last year the army occupied the city's refugee camp. Last year the army occupied the city's refugee camp."Twenty-one years after the crime of the expulsion of northern Samaria, we have completed the repair [...] and we have returned to the settlement of Kadim," said Israeli Finance Minister, the far-right Bezalel Smotrich, during the opening ceremony, using the biblical term to refer to northern West Bank. Beside him were the Justice Minister, the Speaker of the Knesset and Yossi Dagan, head of the settlers' regional council, who promised that one day the settlers would also return to Gaza.

Kadim, located on a small hill on the outskirts of the Palestinian city of Jenin, was evacuated in 2005 by Ariel Sharon's government, as part of his unilateral disengagement plan, which also led to the withdrawal of all settlers and Israeli soldiers from Gaza. The same plan also involved the dismantling of three more settlements in the northern West Bank. The four enclaves were considered too costly to protect at the time, and of little strategic value.

Kadim is the last of the settlements evacuated two decades ago that the settlers have reoccupied. Ganim, Sanur, and Homesh have already been formally reopened and families have settled there. But they are only a small part of the Israeli government's settlement expansion project. Since Benjamin Netanyahu came to power for the third time in late 2022, he has approved more than one hundred new settlements in the West Bank, 19 of which are in the north of the territory.

Parallel to the new settlements around Jenin, two new Israeli military positions are being built, one of them on confiscated Palestinian land next to the Jenin refugee camp. It is the first army base that Israel has established in territory under the full control of the Palestinian Authority since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

International condemnation

Kadim's reoccupation is another challenge from Tel Aviv to international condemnation for the policy of expanding settlements in the West Bank. On Thursday, several European allies of Israel issued a statement with more forceful diplomatic language than usual, to reject a settlement construction project in the so-called E1 area, around Jerusalem, a plan that would divide the West Bank in two.

France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Norway, and the Netherlands described the Israeli decision to call for public tenders for construction projects in this area as "unacceptable." "The E1 settlement will compromise the prospects for a two-state solution because it will create a division across the West Bank and harm the territorial continuity of the Palestinian territories," the Europeans recall. A group of Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Indonesia, and Pakistan, have also spoken out against the colonization of the E1 area.