Israel plans to fund extremist settlers in occupied West Bank with $1.89mn: Report

The Israeli regime, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, intends to allocate 5.5 million shekels (approximately $1.89 million) in official funding to the extremist Jewish settlers group "Hilltop Youth."

According to a report published by the Hebrew-language Yedioth Ahronoth daily newspaper on Monday, the budget was detailed in a document released by the so-called Settlement and National Missions Ministry, which is overseen by Minister Orit Strock. The ministry will manage the distribution of funds through regional settlement councils located in the occupied West Bank.

The funding initiative is set to commence in June, and will continue until the end of the year, amounting to a total of 5.5 million shekels, as stated in the report.

As per the newspaper's findings, each member of the Hilltop Youth movement is expected to receive around $550 per month to assist with food, clothing, and living expenses for over 650 youths residing in the illegal hilltop outposts and pastoral settlement areas throughout the occupied West Bank.

The Hilltop Youth is characterized as an extremist Jewish settler movement, with its members primarily residing in unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank, and they are known for their resistance to evacuation efforts.

This group has often been associated with attacks against Palestinians, and is regarded as the ideological core of the extremist "Price Tag" movement, which has executed retaliatory assaults against Palestinians and their properties.

Established in 1998, the movement mainly consists of Israeli settlers aged between 16 and 26, who have abandoned their homes and educational institutions to inhabit illegal settlement outposts situated on hilltops that overlook Palestinian communities.

The group is viewed as a derivative of the extremist Gush Emunim movement, which promotes the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

This comes as a greater number of Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied West Bank from 2023 until the end of 2025 than in the total of the preceding 17 years, as reported by the international aid organization Oxfam.

According to data sourced from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Oxfam noted that 1,244 Palestinians, including 268 children, were killed in the West Bank during the period from 2023 to 2025.

In contrast, the analysis revealed that 1,036 Palestinians, comprising 225 children, were killed from 2006 until the end of 2022.

Palestinian statistics indicate that since the onset of the Gaza genocidal war in October 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 1,169 Palestinians in the West Bank, including East al-Quds, injured over 12,660 individuals, and abducted approximately 23,000 people.

In a landmark ruling last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory as illegal. It urged the removal of all settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds.

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