How Israel is expanding settlements in drive to reshape West Bank

It was during a ceremony at a settlement in the occupied West Bank last September that Israel's prime minister made his intentions clear. "We are going to fulfill our promise that there will be no Palestinian state," said Benjamin Netanyahu. "This place belongs to us."

He was signing an agreement to push ahead with the expansion of a settlement in an area known as E1, just to the east of Jerusalem.

In recent days, the opening up of tenders for the construction of some 1,200 settlement homes on the strategically important land has brought widespread condemnation.

All settlements are illegal under international law and, under global pressure, Israel held off for decades on plans to build in the area.

After the recent announcement, the UN secretary general said they posed an "existential threat" to a future Palestinian state, while a joint statement by the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada said the plans were "unacceptable" and would "drive a wedge through the West Bank", a sentiment echoed by the European Union.

That was welcomed by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, who called for the signatories to take "concrete measures to halt the implementation of the E1 plan".

Along with Gaza and the Golan Heights, the West Bank was captured during the 1967 war against a coalition of Arab states. Israel has controlled it ever since.

As occupied land, international law prohibits Israel from settling it. Despite that, the number of Israelis living there has grown over the years. Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since 1967.

There has been a notable increase in the speed of settlement construction since 2022, however, when Netanyahu returned to power at the head of a right-wing, pro-settler coalition, further escalating after the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

One example of this is Tzofim, a settlement in the north west of the territory, where BBC Verify analysis of satellite imagery shows the construction of around 185 new buildings since 2022.

The same can be seen around Kochav Hashahar, where the existing settlement has been expanded in multiple directions, with construction of roads, houses and a new settler outpost on surrounding land.

Hundreds of outposts - illegal under Israeli and international law - have been established since the 1990s. Dozens of them have been retrospectively legalised by the government.

Maybe the most contentious is the aforementioned E1 settlement. To understand why, you need to look at maps of its proposed location.

The development would in effect divide the West Bank in two and isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of the territory. Opponents of the project have warned that it would effectively block the establishment of a Palestinian state because it would cut off the north of the West Bank from the south, and prevent the development in the centre of a contiguous Palestinian urban area connecting Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog that has challenged the plans in court, said: "The government is trying to sign contracts with contractors before the (upcoming October) elections so that it will be much harder for the next government to cancel the construction."

It is not just settlements that have been expanding. Over the last few years, much of the responsibility for the administration of the West Bank has shifted from military control to a civilian authority headed by Bezalel Smotrich, the country's far right finance minister.

This has led to a huge increase in the numbers of roads that cross the West Bank, connecting settlements but bisecting Palestinian towns and villages, something he said "ensures that the settlements will not remain on paper - but will be established on the ground".

In May of this year, the Israeli government announced more than a billion shekels ($360m; £246m) of funding for new road construction in the West Bank, with the intention of "strengthening of their grip on the territory", according to an official press release.

There has also been an escalation of settler violence against Palestinians. Recently, two Palestinian homes were besieged by settlers, with their water and power cut, leading US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, usually a prominent supporter of settlements, to denounce the attack as a "criminal and terrorist act".

All taken together, it has led to fears from Palestinians in the West Bank and supporters of Palestinian statehood that the "facts on the ground" will render it unviable.

According to some senior Israeli ministers, that is the strategy. Speaking in 2024, Smotrich said the construction of E1 would help "establish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (a name for the occupied West Bank used by Israel), first on the ground and then through legislation… My life's mission is to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state".

The recent news that the tender has been put out for construction of E1, comes just a couple of months ahead of deeply consequential and tightly contested elections in Israel.

Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition partners will hope that moves like this appeal to their base and increase their chances of victory. If that is not possible, they may believe that settlement expansion has established new "facts on the ground", ones which cannot be undone.

Additional reporting by Barbara Metzler, BBC Verify. Graphics by Tom Shiel and Mesut Ersoz.