Israel's settler movement takes victory lap as a sparse outpost becomes a settlement within a month

YATZIV SETTLEMENT, West Bank — Celebratory music blasting from loudspeakers mixed with the sounds of construction, almost drowning out calls to prayer from a mosque in the Palestinian town across this West Bank valley.

Orthodox Jewish women in colorful head coverings, with babies on their hips, shared platters of fresh vegetables as soldiers encircled the hilltop, keeping guard.

The scene Monday reflected the culmination of Israeli settlers' long campaign to turn this site, overlooking the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour, into a settlement. Over the years, they fended off plans to build a hospital for Palestinian children on the land, always holding tight to the hope the land would one day become theirs.

That moment is now, they say.

Smotrich goes on settlement spree

After two decades of efforts, it took just a month for their new settlement, called ''Yatziv,'' to go from an unauthorized outpost of a few mobile homes to a fully recognized settlement. Fittingly, the new settlement's name means ''stable'' in Hebrew.

''We are standing stable here in Israel,'' Finance Minister and settler leader Bezalel Smotrich told The Associated Press at Monday's inauguration ceremony. ''We're going to be here forever. We will never establish a Palestinian state here.''

Smotrich, who has been in charge of Israeli settlement policy for the past three years, has overseen an aggressive construction and expansion binge aimed at dismantling any remaining hopes of establishing a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank.

While most of the world considers the settlements illegal, their impact on the ground is clear, with Palestinians saying the ever-expanding construction hems them in and makes it nearly impossible to establish a viable independent state. The Palestinians seek the West Bank, captured by Israel in 1967, as part of a future state.

With Netanyahu and Trump, settlers feel emboldened

Settlers had long set their sights on the hilltop, thanks to its position in a line of settlements surrounding Jerusalem and because they said it was significant to Jewish history. But they put up the boxy prefab homes in November because days earlier, Palestinian attackers had stabbed an Israeli to death at a nearby junction.

The attack created an impetus to justify the settlement, the local settlement council chair, Yaron Rosenthal, told AP. With the election of Israel's far-right government in late 2022, Trump's return to office last year and the November attack, conditions were ripe for settlers to make their move, Rosenthal said.

''Now there is the right political constellation for this to happen."

Smotrich announced approval of the outpost, along with 18 others, on Dec. 21. That capped 20 years of effort, said Nadia Matar, a settler activist.

''Shdema was nearly lost to us,'' said Matar, using the name of an Israeli military base at the site. ''What prevented that outcome was perseverance.''

Back in 2006, settlers were infuriated upon hearing that Israel's government was in talks with the U.S. to build a Palestinian children's hospital on the land, said Hagit Ofran, a director at Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group, especially as the U.S. Agency for International Development was funding a ''peace park'' at the base of the hill.

The mayor of Beit Sahour urged the U.S. Consulate to pressure Israel to begin hospital construction, while settlers began weekly demonstrations at the site calling on Israel to quash the project, according to consulate files obtained through WikiLeaks.

The hospital was never built. The site was converted into a military base after the Netanyahu government came to power in 2009. From there, settlers quickly established a foothold by creating makeshift cultural center at the site, putting on lectures, readings and exhibits

Speaking to the AP, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister at the time the hospital was under discussion, said that was the tipping point.

''Once it is military installation, it is easier than to change its status into a new outpost, a new settlement and so on,'' he said.

Olmert said Netanyahu — who has served as prime minister nearly uninterrupted since then — was ''committed to entirely different political directions from the ones that I had,'' he said. ''They didn't think about cooperation with the Palestinians.''

Palestinians say the land is theirs

The land now home to Yatziv was originally owned by Palestinians from Beit Sahour, said the town's mayor, Elias Isseid.

''These lands have been owned by families from Beit Sahour since ancient times,'' he said.

Isseid worries more land loss is to come. Yatziv is the latest in a line of Israeli settlements to pop up around Beit Sahour, all of which are connected by a main highway that runs to Jerusalem without entering Palestinian villages. The new settlement ''poses a great danger to our children, our families," he said.