The National Bureau for Land Defense and Settlement Resistance said that the “Oslo” Accords, which have passed thirty years since their signing, are being overshadowed by successive waves of construction operations and destructive settlement plans that target the remaining land of the Palestinians, pointing out that the number of settlers in the West Bank, including Jerusalem Eastern has increased seven times since the signing of those agreements.

On September 13, 1993, what was called the first Oslo Agreement (Declaration of Principles Agreement) was signed in the White House garden in Washington. On the twenty-eighth of September 1995, what was called the Palestinian-Israeli Interim Agreement was signed in Taba, Egypt, which divided the West Bank into what became known as areas (A), which are large Palestinian cities and towns, and (B), which includes villages and small towns, and (C) It is the largest area, equal to about 62% of the area of the West Bank, and is administratively and security-wise subject to full Israeli control. This division of the West Bank was not arbitrary, coincidental, or meaningless, as much as it was deliberate and indicated implicit goals. Later years showed how dangerous it was. This area, called (C), according to the interim agreement, was the target of the occupying state’s ambitions as a vital area for its settlement project. 99% of this area is completely excluded from Palestinian use, and the occupation authorities do not allow Palestinians to build there for residential, commercial or industrial purposes. It contains most of the natural resources in the West Bank, and it contains the main water basins with the exception of the northeastern basin in Jenin Governorate, and it contains open spaces, which were The source of income for Palestinian farmers, and 70% of its lands are defined as being within the municipal boundaries of settlements and settlers.

The first settlement wave
This area was targeted for settlement from the beginning. This settlement went through three waves, and it seems that we are on a date with its fourth and final phase. The first wave was the period of Labor Party rule between 1967 and 1977, when a number of settlements were built, amounting to about 31 settlements, the most important of which were in the Greater Jerusalem area and in Gush Etzion in the Bethlehem Governorate and in the Jordan Valley, in addition to the settlement that was established on the lands of the destroyed villages (Yalo, Beit Nuba, Latrun). As for the number of settlers, it rose to 2,876 settlers. The focus at that time was on Gush Etzion, the Jordan Valley, and the Greater Jerusalem area, while in the rest of the West Bank, Israel built only one settlement.

The second wave
The second wave came with the major shift in Israel's settlement policy after the rise of the extreme right led by Menachem Begin to power and after the signing of the peace agreement with Egypt. At the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties, Israel established 35 settlements, followed by 43 new settlements until the end of the eighties. Settlement activities escalated in the period that accompanied the Madrid and Washington negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli sides after the First Gulf War in 1991. The government of Yitzhak Shamir established seven new settlements, and the number of settlers rose to 107 thousand settlers, bringing their percentage to 5.3% of the general population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. .

Third wave
As for the third wave, it was after the signing of the Oslo Accords, when settlement activities continued, as settlement expansion took place, bypass roads were opened, and military orders were issued ordering the seizure of Palestinian lands, contrary to what was included in the “Oslo” Accords, which stipulated that neither party may begin Or take any step that would change the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip until awaiting the results of the final status negotiations, as if Israel is in a race against time to impose more new facts on the ground. The Israeli governments used the agreements that were signed with the Palestinian side, just as they used the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations as a political cover for their settlement activities until we reached, before the last elections for the Israeli Knesset in 2022, 158 settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, inhabited by about 700-750 thousand. settlers, in addition to 15-20 thousand settlers living in more than 200 settlement outposts, which over time began to turn into an incubator for Jewish terrorist organizations, such as the “Hill Youth” organizations, “Pay the Price” organizations, and other organizations calling themselves “rebellion,” and with this expansion Settlement expansion is no longer talking about political settlements (that can be dismantled) and security settlements, as Yitzhak Rabin put it, but rather about a settlement-colonial structure on an area of 600 thousand dunums, which constitutes about 12% of the area of the West Bank, in addition to about two million dunums, which is the area of areas under the influence of the councils. The area of the Palestinian lands under the direct control of the settlements, including settlement outposts and so-called pastoral farms, amounts to about 40% of the total area of the West Bank.

The current fourth wave
The fourth wave of unprecedented settlement activity and destructive Israeli plans began with the rise of the fascist and neo-Nazi right to power in Israel after the last elections for the Knesset, which took place in November of last year, which aimed to raise the number of settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, to about One million settlers over the next two years. Bezalel Smutotrich, Minister of Finance and Minister of Settlements in the Ministry of the Army, for his part, prepared a settlement plan that includes dozens of settlement projects, including new construction, including new settlement cities, and the legalization of about 155 settlement outposts and pastoral farms, (which are two sides of the same coin and a shelter for Jewish terrorist organizations. That is why he asked two weeks ago to postpone the discussion of granting “legitimacy” to a number of settlement outposts in the Israeli Knesset, pending the crystallization of his destructive settlement project. In this, Smotrich intersects with both Ben Gvir and Netanyahu. In Jerusalem, new settlement cities such as “New Talpiot” and “Kadmat Zion,” bypass roads, and a light train, and in the rest of the West Bank governorates, a return to settlement in the settlements, which were evacuated by the Sharon government in 2005 in the Jenin Governorate, and the intensification and development of pastoral settlement in the areas on the banks of the Jordan Valley, starting with the areas Located to the east of the towns of Beit Dajan and Ben Furik, up to the north in the areas of Beita, Qasra, Majdal Bani Fadel, Douma, Jalud, and Qaryut in the Nablus Governorate. And in the areas of Turmus Aya, Bani Falah, Al-Mughir, Kafr Malek, and Marajat Al-Taybeh in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, all the way to the Jerusalem desert in the direction of the Jordan Valley and the city of Jericho. For this purpose, the occupation government has allocated about 3.5 billion shekels to prepare the necessary infrastructure for such projects, including accelerating the completion of a number of new bypass roads, which exempt settlers from traveling in areas populated by Palestinian residents. Benjamin Netanyahu is not far from Smotrich's settlement plans and projects, as he encourages them in the context of a long-term project that talks about moving settlement to a new qualitative stage.

In numbers
If we try to zoom in on the picture with numbers, we will realize the size and extent of the dangerous development that has occurred in the settlement project in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. According to the population statistics for the settlements, issued by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, and also issued by the Settlements Council in what is called “Judea and Samaria,” the number of settlers in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, at the signing of the first Oslo Accords in 1993 was about 115,000, and it rose in 1999 to about 177,411. In 2005 to 249,901, in 2010 to 313,928, in 2015 to 388,285, and in 2018 to 430,147, bringing by the end of 2022 more than 500,000 settlers, residing in 158 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including 24 in East Jerusalem. In addition, there are approximately 200 illegal Israeli settlement outposts and pastoral farms inhabited by about 25,000 settlers, the vast majority of whom are the terrorist “Hill Youth” and “Price Price” thugs. In total, more than 500,000 Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank, in addition to 250,000 residing in East Jerusalem, meaning that the total exceeds 750,000 settlers, which constitutes seven times the number that was the case in 1993.