UK-sanctioned settlers intensify campaign to expel Palestinians from West Bank village
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Two Israeli settlers recently sanctioned by the UK government have intensified a campaign aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinians from the West Bank village of Mughayyir al-Deir, even as Britain suspended free-trade negotiations with Israel over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and rising settler violence.
The settlers, Neria Ben Pazi and Zohar Sabah, have been repeatedly seen at a newly erected illegal outpost situated less than 100 metres from a Palestinian home, and their presence has coincided with an immediate escalation in intimidation tactics against the village’s Bedouin residents, The Guardian reported.
Ben Pazi, whose organisation Neria’s Farm was sanctioned by the UK this week, has a history of leading violent land seizures and building illegal outposts, and was himself placed on the UK sanctions list in 2023 for displacing Palestinian Bedouin families.
Despite these sanctions, he visited the illegal outpost near Mughayyir al-Deir multiple times this week and was photographed interacting with individuals, including one dressed in a military-style uniform. Sabah, added to the sanctions list only a day before his visit, has been indicted in Israel for his role in a violent settler attack on a Palestinian school.
The outpost has become a base for what local observers and human rights activists describe as a campaign of terror involving weapons, threats, and the use of sheep enclosures to occupy land long used by Palestinian shepherds. These actions have caused significant distress to local families, with residents already beginning to flee their homes in fear.
Support for the settlers from Israeli political figures has further inflamed tensions, with Knesset member Zvi Sukkot of the far-right Religious Zionist party seen visiting the outpost, while the Israeli military has distanced itself from the displacement, stating that no formal authorisation was given and that demolition of illegal structures falls under political rather than military jurisdiction.
The campaign in Mughayyir al-Deir is part of a broader trend that has accelerated since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, with settler violence and land seizures increasing in frequency and visibility. Human rights groups such as B’tselem report that more than 1,200 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, have been forced from 20 communities since the war began, and observers argue that impunity for both soldiers and settlers has deepened under the current Israeli government.
Although forced displacement has long been a feature of Israeli policy in the West Bank, international experts and activists argue that what is unfolding now constitutes a more overt and aggressive strategy, emboldened by government backing and lack of meaningful accountability.
The pattern of settlers erecting outposts, attacking residents, and using livestock to overrun farmland has been documented for years, but the proximity and brazenness of the Mughayyir al-Deir campaign underscore the growing confidence of settler groups.
