Netanyahu tells settlers: '104 communities... and 160 farms, with more to come'

Benjamin Netanyahu stood before a settlers' event late Tuesday and put a number on his government's project.

"We cannot ignore the numbers: 104 communities that we established and legalised together, and 160 farms, with more to come."

The quote comes from a statement issued by the prime minister's own office. Netanyahu did not stop there. "You are fulfilling the vision of the Land of Israel, and this is our land," he told the crowd, adding that they were "preparing the ground for a very large wave of immigration that will come." He called it "a tremendous effort by the government to fulfil the vision of generations."

Every one of those communities sits on occupied territory. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law by the UN and the overwhelming majority of the world's governments. Many of the outposts Netanyahu referenced are illegal even under Israeli law, built as clusters of mobile homes or makeshift structures that Israeli authorities have increasingly moved to retroactively approve rather than dismantle.

The timing is not incidental. Netanyahu faces elections on 27 October, and his coalition is among the most right-wing in Israel's history, including ministers who have called openly for annexing the West Bank outright. The speech came roughly a week after Israeli authorities opened bidding on more than 1,200 homes in the E1 settlement zone, a project approved last year that would physically sever the northern and southern West Bank, cutting off the geographic contiguity a future Palestinian state would need. European leaders condemned the E1 bidding when it was announced.

More than 500,000 Israelis now live in West Bank settlements built since Israel's occupation began in 1967. Roughly three million Palestinians live in the same territory. Settler violence against Palestinians, often carried out with Israeli army protection, has risen sharply since 2023, according to reporting on the ground, though this account does not tabulate specific incident counts.

Netanyahu's statement was not a leak or a document surfaced after the fact. It was delivered publicly, to a room of settlers, and released by his own office. The 104 communities and 160 farms are not an allegation. They are the government's own count of what it has built and expects to keep building.