The eastern and southeastern areas of Bethlehem, including Abu Engeim, Juret Al-Shamma, Tuqu‘, and Harmala, are witnessing a severe escalation in settler attacks, which reflect an organized pattern aimed at creating and expanding settlements in the area, isolating the city from its natural geographical extension, within the broader context of creeping annexation and forcible displacement.
On Monday, 30 March 2026, settlers erected a settlement tent on privately owned land in the village of Abu Engeim, southeast of Bethlehem, specifically in the area known as Al-Mawaleh under the jurisdiction of Ganata Municipality, near a Palestinian hospital. This step represents a new episode in a series of repeated incursions and attacks targeting the same lands over the past months, despite verified private ownership, formal complaints submitted by the landowners, and prior evacuation orders for this site by the Israeli occupying authority.
In an escalation of grave concern, these attacks took place as the settlers killed a Palestinian civilian on Thursday, 26 March. The young man was killed after having sustained a gunshot wound to the head during an attack carried out by a group of settlers on his family’s lands in Harmala, east of Bethlehem. The same attack injured three family members, including his brother, who sustained serious injuries from settler stone-throwing.
Eyewitnesses reported that settlers fired live ammunition at civilians near the Palestinian hospital in the area. These acts were further facilitated by the protection provided by the Israeli army during their operations on the family’s land.
The erection of the settlement tent and the settlers’ lethal violence cannot be separated from the broader context of systematic colonial planning in the area. This step constitutes a practical implementation of an Israeli military decision to construct a bypass road linking the settlements of Tuqu‘ and Efrat, effectively severing Bethlehem from its southern rural surroundings and transforming its eastern areas into a closed settlement belt. This settlement plan is known as Givat Etan, forming a component of the E2 Project, which aims to encircle Bethlehem and prevent any future urban or spatial expansion.
The E2 plan entails the construction of approximately 2,500 new settlement units on lands east, south, and southeast of Bethlehem, to serve the expansion of the Efrat settlement bloc. This measure is intended to suffocate the city from the south, after the Har Homa settlement has already restricted the expansion of its northern areas. Consequently, the E2 plan represents a central tool to obstruct the natural growth of Bethlehem, forcibly integrating it into a contiguous settlement environment that serves the expansion of the Gush Etzion bloc, thereby deepening the city’s isolation and imposing de facto annexation on the ground.
Legal Analysis and Framework
The ongoing settler attack on private Palestinians land in eastern and southeastern areas of Bethlehem, including the erection of settlement tents, land incursions, and the use of live ammunition against civilians, constitutes clear violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. These acts form part of a systematic pattern of forcible annexation and impunity that undermines the rights and protections of the occupied population.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, Articles 49 and 53 explicitly prohibit the transfer or settlement of the occupying power’s population into occupied territory and forbid the destruction of private or public property, unless absolutely required for military necessity. The establishment of settlement tents, the construction of bypass roads, and the seizure of privately owned lands for settlement purposes fall squarely within these prohibitions, representing the imposition of new facts on the ground through coercion.
In parallel, these attacks violate core human rights protected under international law. The right to life, enshrined in Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, was directly violated in the killing of the young Palestinian man who was shot in the head.
The broader settlement projects, notably the E2 plan, constitute a form of de facto annexation that violates Article 2 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and is condemned by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016), which reaffirms the illegality of settlement activity and demands its immediate cessation.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion affirming that Israel’s very presence in the Israeli settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful. Israeli settlements are deemed illegal and constitute a violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Court emphasized that settlements impede Palestinian rights, including the right to self-determination, and obligated the occupying power to halt all settlement activities and compensate the victims, while calling on the international community not to recognize any situation arising from this occupation.
Israel bears full legal responsibility for the actions of settlers, whether through direct protection, systematic failure to enforce the law, or the provision of the environment enabling impunity. This responsibility includes the obligations to restore the confiscated lands, provide reparations to the affected Palestinians, and ensure non-repetition of the violations against the right to live, property, and freedom of movement, in accordance with the principles of state responsibility under international Law.
The Balasan Initiative for Human Rights (BIHR) warns against increasing and relentless settler violence and the expansion of settlement projects in these areas. Previous BIHR reporting has examined these patterns in depth, including through detailed case studies and eyewitness testimonies from Palestinian communities in eastern, southern, and southeastern Bethlehem, as documented in Escalating Settler Violence and Aggression in the Occupied West Bank Report.