Itamar Ben Gvir

Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has moved to transfer security authority over Israeli settlements and settlers in the occupied West Bank from the Israeli army to the civil police, a decision Palestinians read as a decisive step toward the de facto annexation of the territory, and one that places the settler movement, in effect, in charge of policing itself. Katz gave the Israeli army two weeks to draft a plan to transfer powers to the police, while the army’s role in the West Bank would be limited to “managing” Palestinians and controlling borders. The announcement, made last Monday, came after ten days of settlers besieging three Palestinian families in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus.