The Bedouin Rights Advocacy Organization, Al-Baidar, said in a statement that "groups of settlers began, this morning, to establish a permanent presence in the Al-Muntar area near the village of Kardala in the northern Jordan Valley, in preparation for the establishment of a new settlement outpost in the area."
A settlement is one that is established with the approval of the Israeli government, while outposts are established by settlers without government approval.
According to the organization, "settlers set up several caravans (mobile homes) and began fencing off areas of surrounding agricultural land, under the protection of the Israeli occupation army."
It considered this step to be part of a "systematic escalation of settlement and Judaization operations in the Jordan Valley, particularly with the increasing violations against Palestinian residents, the confiscation of their lands, and the prevention of their access to their agricultural and pastoral lands," according to the same statement.
This comes as settler attacks in the West Bank escalate, with settlers attacking civilians, homes, and property, and building settlement outposts on Palestinian land.
According to the Palestinian Commission Against the Wall and Settlements (governmental), settlers attempted to establish 15 settlement outposts last May, "mostly agricultural and pastoral."
During May, the Commission documented 415 settler attacks against Palestinians and their property, ranging from armed attacks to vandalism, land destruction, uprooting of trees, and forced closures.
According to Palestinian reports, the number of settlers in the West Bank reached approximately 770,000 by the end of 2024, distributed across 180 settlements and 256 outposts.
Demand international action
For its part, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates called on Sunday for deterrent international measures to halt the escalating crimes committed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the international community to "assume its responsibilities under international law and international legitimacy resolutions, to stop settler crimes against Palestinian civilians, and to implement relevant UN resolutions."
The ministry called for "the necessary deterrent measures to be taken to ensure an end to the attacks by settler gangs and their terrorist elements against our people, their land, their property, and their holy sites."
She added, "The nature of the recent mass settler attacks on Palestinian towns and villages reflects a clear division of roles between the armed and organized settler militias and the occupation army, which practices the most heinous forms of oppression and abuse against Palestinian citizens."
border with Jordan
In a separate context, the Israeli occupation army announced on Sunday that it had completed the formation of the "96th Division" and deployed it to the eastern border with Jordan.
The army explained in a statement that with the outbreak of the war with Iran (June 13-24), the formation of the 96th Division was completed, "with the aim of strengthening and doubling the number of forces deployed on the eastern border in various protection missions."
He noted that last Thursday, the division conducted an exercise "on emergency scenarios and providing rapid responses to emergency events, while raising the division's combat readiness."
For its part, the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that "one of the main efforts of the Israeli occupation army's Central Command is to isolate the West Bank and prevent" what it claimed was "the entry of weapons and militants from the eastern border, funded and supported by Iran."
The length of Jordan's western border is 335 kilometers, of which 97 kilometers are with the West Bank and 238 kilometers with Israel.
Jordan is connected to Israel by three border crossings: Sheikh Hussein (Jordan River on the Israeli side), King Hussein Bridge (Allenby Bridge), and Wadi Araba (Yitzhak Rabin Bridge).
In parallel with the annihilation of Gaza, the Israeli army and settlers escalated their attacks in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, resulting in the deaths of at least 986 Palestinians and the injury of approximately 7,000 others, according to Palestinian data.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with full American support, has been waging a genocidal war in Gaza, killing and wounding more than 189,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women, and leaving more than 11,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced.
