Mustafa Abu Siam, 37, stands and looks out over the wadi to the east of his village, Mukhamas, just a few miles northeast of Jerusalem. The wadi is dissected by a newly compacted white dirt road, built over the past few months. The road connects the Nahalat Zvi, which was established in 2022, to a newly constructed offshoot of the outpost. “The owner of the land can’t come to this area,” Abu Siam says, pointing down into the wadi. “If he tries and the settlers see him, they’ll attack him. We used to graze our sheep here and there are also olive trees that we cannot access.” While he was speaking, a herd of sheep belonging to Israeli settlers descended on the wadi via the newly built road, looking for fresh pastures.

Israel has demolished the illegal outpost of Nahalat Zvi several times but it has been rebuilt each time – and now, as alluded to above, is not only constructing a new offshoot but even building a road to connect them. According to Abu Siam, the road was compacted in October; the work lasted around a week and was carried out at night. “We called the DCL [the Civil Administration’s District Coordination and Liaison unit] and the police, but they didn’t do anything. We went to see the officer in charge in Beit El and when he came here he said it’s a problem. We built a road, using asphalt, and the same Civil Administration demolished it. So why did it not close the road that the settlers are using?”

The extent of Israeli construction is measured in terms of how many housing units are approved for construction, establishing new neighborhoods, building outposts and, in recent years, also farms. But the massive development of the one thing needed to connect between all of these and the sine qua non of their very existence – roads – goes largely under the radar. Under the current government, there has been a surge in road construction; not only has there been a spike in the number of roads constructed illegally that still get direct or indirect government support, but also in the number of roads the government has approved, at a cost of billions. Some of these roads create new restrictions on the Palestinian population, preventing them from reaching the lands on which they farm, while others are changing the very reality of the West Bank and making any future separation close to impossible. In essence, they are laying the infrastructure for the Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

“The owner of the land can’t come to this area,” Abu Siam says, pointing down into the wadi. “If he tries and the settlers see him, they’ll attack him. We used to graze our sheep here and there are also olive trees that we cannot access.”

Limited Grazing Land

The “national project” to build Israeli farms in the West Bank – which receives support from a variety of government sources and which has been accelerated under the current government – is no secret. The goal, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken about openly, is clear: taking control of as much land as possible with as few settlers as possible. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said so quite openly during a recent ceremony where he, along with Minister of Settlements and National Missions Orit Strook, handed over dozens of ATVs to the farmers. “This is an incredible event happening in Judea and Samaria,” he said. “This is a farm and a family lives here with a goat pen. You can see the sheep and goats down below. And it takes up huge areas of land. If this farm doesn’t take up the land.. the well is empty, there is no water in it, just snakes and scorpions.”

The roads that are built to these farms – as well as to the outposts or older settlements in the area – are to a large extent a lifeline for residents, affording them not only easier access to the farms but also demarcating the seized land.

From the Palestinian side, things look very different. Just 4 kilometers east of Mukhamas, residents of Mughayer al-Deir – a Bedouin community of shepherds – are encountering exactly the same problem. The settlement of Mitzpeh Danny, an offshoot of Ma’ale Michmash, which expanded eastwards toward the Allon Road, has itself grown an easterly branch: Havat Ruah Ha’aretz (the Spirit of the Land Farm), and a road has been paved between the settlement and the farm.

Omar Malihat, a young man from Mughayer al-Deir, says that the new road helps the settlers who come from the farm to approach their village – not only on foot, but also in ATVs and cars. He, too, says that the road also means that large swaths of land are no longer accessible for grazing and that the total amount of accessible land has been greatly reduced.

Until recently, roads were only being paved to the south of the village, but some three weeks ago, Palestinians were surprised to discover heavy machinery being operated by settlers on the northern edge of the village, too, just meters from their homes. The settlers showed shocked locals permits they had been granted by the Binyamin Regional Council, allowing them to conduct “works to maintain state-owned land.” One of the bulldozers working at the scene severed an electricity cable and, according to locals, the driver threatened to demolish a nearby home. Finally, residents say, after they contacted the IDF several times, officers eventually arrived on the scene, halted the settlers’ work, and even confiscated some of their machinery.

In response, the Israeli military said that “the IDF and the Civil Administration work to enforce the law in an unbiased manner vis-à-vis all populations in the area, while taking into account security, legal and operations considerations and in accordance with the instructions and approval of the political echelon. Exceptional cases are handled in accordance with existing procedures, including the cessation of unauthorized work and the confiscation of equipment, if necessary. The IDF and the Civil Administration do not take such incidents lightly, and any allegation of illegal acts is examined and dealt with by the relevant authorities.”

Further north, in Khirbet al-Marjam, which is close to the town of Duma, residents are also trying to get used to their new neighbors – Gal Yosef Farm, which was established last year. On the eve of the Purim holiday in March, settlers descended on Khirbet al-Marjam and torched vehicles. According to locals, the settlers arrived quickly at the village thanks to a new road coming down southwards from the farm, which passes close by their village.

“The roads make it easier for residents of the outposts and farms to attack and harass locals,” says Yotam, a volunteer with Torat Tzedek, an Israeli human rights group that accompanies and assists the Palestinian population in the West Bank. “They allow the settlers to get there a lot quicker – either in their ATVs or in a Jeep. When they arrive on foot and you can see them coming, the locals sometimes have enough time to hide their property or sheep, or to call the authorities or us. Now, it’s a lot harder.”

According to the Peace Now report, which is based primarily on aerial photographs, between mid-2023 and mid-2024, 139 new roads were built illegally in the West Bank, totaling around 116 kilometers (approximately 72 miles).

139 Illegal Roads a Year

Israel does not publish any official figures about the number of new roads built in the territories. An upcoming report from Peace Now (an Israeli liberal advocacy NGO with the aim of promoting a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict) is the only effort by anyone in Israel to analyze the phenomenon and expose its true extent. According to the report, which is based primarily on aerial photographs, between mid-2023 and mid-2024, 139 new roads were built illegally in the West Bank, totaling around 116 kilometers (approximately 72 miles). This figure does not include upgrades to already existing dirt paths.

A total of 25 roads were built to provide access to newly established outposts, 31 were built to expand existing settlements and eight were built to connect an existing outpost with a nearby settlement. In addition, 46 roads were built to provide access to land on which there is currently no permanent settler presence and, according to the report, these sites may be used to erect outposts in the future.

The authors of the report say that none of these new roads had construction plans and none were issued valid permits. They add that two-thirds of them pass through privately owned Palestinian land. “The roads that have been built and paved are for the exclusive use of the settlers; the Palestinians are not allowed to use them, even when they are on privately owned Palestinian land,” the report states.

The construction of illegal roads, as already mentioned, gets government support – including financial backing. One of the funnels through which funding is given is the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division, which itself is funded by the government. At the annual conference of the National Religious Movement last summer, the director general of the Settlement Division, Hoshaya Harari, said that in 2023 his organization had invested around 75 million shekels ($20 million) supporting settler farms and illegal outposts – including 7.7 million shekels ($2.1 million) earmarked for “building new roads.”

Due to the war in the Gaza Strip, the Settlement Division was allocated an additional 75 million shekels to bolster security at the West Bank settlements. In addition to funding for security measures such as guard posts and close-circuit television systems, the outposts could also request funding for “building operational roads.” The minutes from meetings of the allocation committee are supposed to be published on the Settlement Division’s website but, citing legal advice and security reasons, the organization has yet to do so. Despite Shomrim’s request, the Settlement Division also declined to share the legal opinion which argues that not publishing the minutes is legal. In its response, a spokesperson said that, in practice, no new roads were built using these funds.

Another method for funding illegal road building is directly through a budget from the Ministry of Settlements, headed by Orit Strookwhich, that funds the Land Reconnaissance Departments operated by local councils in the West Bank. The stated mission of these departments is “to prevent planning and construction violations and appropriation of state-owned land” and to “improve or renovate dirt roads.”

In that respect, the promises were kept in full. Documents from the Ministry of Settlements reveal that the Har Hevron Regional Council has received 1.1 million shekels ($300,000) so far this year for a project that included “building a path to protect state-owned land in the Susya region,” that the Gush Etzion Regional Council was given 958,000 shekels ($264,000) for “upgrading existing roads to protect state-owned land in the hills” and that the Binyamin Regional Council got 1.9 million shekels ($525,000) for six different road-building projects. This is merely a partial list.

“New roads are means of taking control of land without putting a single settler there,” says Yoni Mizrahi, the author of the Peace Now report. “Some of these outposts are home to just one or two families; sometimes a few youths will be living there. These outposts take up a lot of land and the roads help them control these areas. A road of 1 kilometer has shoulders on both sides, which indicates to all the local Palestinians that the road was built by settlers – so they don’t dare to use it.

“Over the past two years, we have witnessed a lot of violence in the West Bank, as well as a lot of outposts and farm construction – and people are still somehow talking about that,” Mizrahi adds. “But you have to add the roads, which are often even more restrictive for the Palestinians, into the conversation. When I talk about a road, people respond by saying, ‘It’s not too bad, there are no settlers there’ – but the Palestinians who live there feel that they can no longer go to their own land, so they feel the impact of the land grab. In addition, settlers from the outposts are usually careful not to build on privately owned Palestinian land, but a much larger proportion of the roads are on such land.”

There are, inevitably, those on the other side who make exactly the opposite argument. The Regavim organization, which monitors illegal Palestinian and Bedouin construction, petitioned the High Court of Justice to demand that Israeli authorities in the West Bank take action against a road illegally built by Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills on state-owned land.

Last month, Regavim also published a geographical survey purporting to show that, over the past year, Palestinians started to work on 106 kilometers (65.5 miles) of new roads. “These roads are the infrastructure for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the great project of the Palestinian Authority, which is being assisted by the European Union,” according to the Regavim website. The group also complained about the lack of enforcement and called for “a change in the policy vis-à-vis roads.” That would apply, of course, only to roads built by the Palestinians.

The Regavim organization, which monitors illegal Palestinian and Bedouin construction, petitioned the High Court of Justice to demand that Israeli authorities in the West Bank take action against a road illegally built by Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills on state-owned land.

Billions Spent on Legal Roads

Israel is not just building illegal roads in the West Bank, however. It has also built large highways. Among the reasons for doing so is improving travel time between the settlements and the center of the country, so that it will be easier and more convenient to travel from one to the other – and, at the same time, the Green Line will become even more blurred.

The masterplan for West Bank road construction was first put forward when Israel Katz – now minister of defense– served as minister of transportation, but was only launched in November 2020, by which time Miri Regev had taken over. When the plan was unveiled, David Elhayani, the then chairman of the Yesha Council of West Bank Settlements, said “had this plan been implemented a decade ago, it would have ensured that a million Israelis would now be living in Judea and Samaria. This plan connects the settlements with the rest of the country and imposes de facto sovereignty.”

In an interview with Haaretz earlier this month, Yoni Danino, head of the Settlement Administration within the Defense Ministry, made similar remarks.“If we create a situation where all residents of central Israel drive to the Golan Heights through Judea and Samaria — because that’s the route Waze recommends, thanks to the expansion of Route 5 and Route 90, the improved interchanges, and the absence of traffic jams — then ultimately, this will lead to sovereignty over the West Bank,” he said.

Smotrich made similar comments at the conference of the National Religious Movement last year. “If you want to bring a million people to Judea and Samaria, you have to make sure that there is enough room to build – and you need roads,” he said. “Over the next five years, we – the minister of transportation and myself – have allocated almost 7 billion shekels ($1.9 billion). This is a revolution … I can honestly tell you that this is a significant revolution: if, over the next five to seven years, you can drive within 15 minutes from anywhere in Binyamin, Samaria or the Jordan Valley to a transportation hub where there is mass-transit infrastructure, and within another quarter of an hour you can connect to the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, all the light railway and the metro and everything, that’s a revolution. That’s how you bring a million people to Judea and Samaria.”

In July 2023, at a meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee West Bank subcommittee, a representative of Netivei Israel – the government-owned corporation, in charge of planning, construction and maintenance of most road infrastructure in Israel – detailed the construction or renovation projects that the company is undertaking in the West Bank, including those still at the planning stage and those already under construction. The cost of the nine projects that the representative detailed is 3.1 billion shekels.

As part of the master plan, two new roads were opened in 2023: the Al-Arroub bypass and the Hawara bypass, at a combined cost of around 550 million shekels ($152 million). In addition, the cabinet recently approved the construction of a so-called "fabric of life" road near Ma’aleh Adumim, connecting the villages of a-Za’im and Elazariya, which lie on opposite sides of Route 1. According to ynet, the road — expected to cost approximately 335 million shekels ($92 million) — is intended to improve the lives of Palestinians in the area. However, its main purpose is to separate Palestinian and Israeli traffic, with Palestinians using the new road and Israelis remaining on Route 1. The project would also create a direct link between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim.

“When you look to see where there has been progress with this masterplan, you see that most of the focus has been to control Route 60 [which dissects the West Bank from north to south] and building roads to isolated settlements in order to make them more accessible – and so that they can be expanded,” says Dr. Shaul Arieli, a retired IDF colonel and a member of the Geneva Initiative. “Like Elon Moreh, Itamar, Bracha and Yitzhar. That’s why they built the Hawara bypass at a cost of millions of shekels.

"As of today, a settler spends twice as much time commuting to work in Israel as the average Israeli," Arieli adds. "They also spend about a quarter of their household income on accessibility. The highways the government is planning will shorten settlers’ commute times, save them money, and most importantly, improve their quality of life. That’s significant, because around 60 percent of the workforce in Judea and Samaria is employed inside Israel. They live in villas with private land and stunning views, receive excellent services from the state, and the only real cost — the commute into Israel for work — is becoming easier. There’s no doubt this will encourage more people to move there."

Simulation of the recently inaugurated Huwara bypass road

The Ministry of Settlements and National Missions said in response: “The ministry acts solely in accordance with the guidelines of the legal counsel to the government, and, inter alia, any infrastructure operation to preserve land, including road construction, is done in accordance with the law.”

The Ministry of Transportation rejected claims that the construction of new roads in Judea and Samaria is designed to advance Israeli annexation of the West Bank or to create the conditions for future annexation. “The claim made in your request for a comment lacks all basis,” a spokesperson said in response. “In discussions by the masterplan team for road construction in Judea and Samaria, only professional bodies participated. Furthermore, the plan was developed using a computer model, which generated the program’s output independently, without the involvement of any other entity. The Transportation Ministry, under the leadership of Minister Regev, continues to invest in transportation infrastructure across the country. The ministry is committed to developing a comprehensive and uniform transportation system that connects all parts of the country, with the goal of ensuring that the public benefits from accessibility, safety and optimal comfort when traveling. It is important to emphasize that this infrastructure is planned and executed according to the strictest and most advanced standards in the world.”

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in response that “the IDF operates in accordance with the law and instructions from the political echelon, as well as operational and security considerations.”

Smotrich’s office did not respond to requests for comment.