Animated map shows spread of illegal Israeli settlements across Palestine

EXPLAINERSome 750,000 settlers live across more than 500 illegal settlements and outposts, as Israeli pogroms hit record highs.Israeli settlements are Jewish-only communities built illegally on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.These settlements often look like ordinary suburbs: uniform townhouses, red-tiled roofs, and neat lawns, perched atop hills that give them a commanding view of the Palestinian towns and villages carved up to make room for them.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Why Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in West Bank are pogromslist 2 of 4Bezalel Smotrich’s long struggle to annex the West Bank for Israellist 3 of 4Why ‘pogrom’ best describes what’s happening in the occupied West Banklist 4 of 4Who are the ‘Hilltop Girls’ behind Israel’s ‘soft settlement’ strategy?end of listIn this visual explainer, Al Jazeera maps the spread of illegal Israeli settlements and outposts, and the settler pogroms accompanying them, now at their highest levels on record.The spread of Israeli settlements and outpostsSettlements predate the creation of Israel in 1948, but their number and scale expanded dramatically after Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.Over the past six decades, the settlement network has grown from scattered hilltop outposts into a sprawling system of settlements, roads and highways binding them to each other and to Israel.According to Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog, there are at least 148 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and 15 in occupied East Jerusalem, 163 in total, now home to some 750,000 Israelis, roughly 10 percent of the country’s Jewish population.The animation below tracks the founding of each settlement and outpost, along with their growing populations. In 2025 alone, nearly 28,000 housing units were advanced within existing settlements in the occupied West Bank, far more growth than new settlements or outposts added on their own.An aerial view of the illegal Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim in the occupied West Bank, on June 29, 2020 [Ilan Rosenberg/Reuters]By 2024, these 163 illegal settlements were home to 744,700 Israeli settlers: 511,100 in the West Bank and 233,600 in East Jerusalem, alongside a record number of illegal outposts, now more than 400, that are not officially counted but are often absorbed into recognised settlements over time, making a true tally difficult to pin down.How outposts become settlementsSettlements are illegal under international law as they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bans an occupying power from transferring its population to the area it occupies.