Settlers establish a new settlement outpost southeast of Bethlehem

Today, Sunday, settlers established a new colonial outpost on citizens' lands in the Minya area, southeast of Bethlehem.

Minya Village Council Chairman Zayed Kawazba said that a group of settlers had set up several tents in the southern part of the village.

He added that the establishment of this outpost came less than 24 hours after a barbaric attack launched by settlers in the nearby Wadi Sa'ir area, which resulted in the burning of a vehicle belonging to citizen Ihab Shalalda and the destruction of solar panels used by residents for lighting and watering their livestock.

"What is happening is a dangerous escalation in the forced displacement process," Kawazbeh added. "For weeks, our region has been subjected to repeated attacks by settlers, under the protection of the army, with the aim of forcing residents to leave their lands. Today, they are establishing a settlement outpost, confirming their premeditated intentions to seize the land."

Kawazbeh called on human rights and humanitarian organizations and international institutions to urgently intervene to halt this illegal settlement expansion, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions and threatens the Palestinian presence in the entire region.

He emphasized that Minya is one of the rural communities heavily targeted by settlements, with several illegal settlement outposts scattered around it, forming part of a plan to separate the southern West Bank from its center through a series of colonial expansions.

The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission stated that in the first half of 2025, settlers established 23 outposts on citizens' lands, most of them pastoral outposts, in the governorates of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Qalqilya, Tubas, and Jerusalem. This is a continuation of the settlers' policy of imposing facts on the ground under the full auspices of the occupation army.