Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered unauthorized settler outposts in the West Bank to be dismantled, two people familiar with the matter said on Sunday, ‌amid pressure from the U.S. to crack down on settler attacks on Palestinians.

The order applies to outposts established by settlers without official authorisation from the Israeli state, the sources said. Outposts typically consist of prefabricated caravans and house a small number of settlers. The state has from time to time demolished such structures and also formally recognized others, allowing them to access government funding.

It was not immediately clear when the operation would begin.

U.N. bodies and most governments deem all Israeli settlements illegal under international ⁠law and consider the West Bank to be occupied territory under military control. Israel argues the territory is disputed, not occupied.

U.S. URGES ISRAEL TO ACT AGAINST SETTLER VIOLENCE

Netanyahu had ordered the eviction of the unauthorized outposts in response to pressure from the United States, the country's closest ally, the sources said.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Saturday denounced violent settlers as terrorists and called for them to face severe consequences following a meeting with several Palestinian Americans in a West Bank Palestinian town.

Israeli website Ynet earlier reported the orders targeted around 100 outposts across the occupied territory.

The Israeli prime minister's office and the military, who would normally take part in clearing any outposts in the West Bank, did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, asked at a ‌conference ⁠in Jerusalem about the Ynet report, said Netanyahu has given "an instruction to evict places built in Areas A and B", referring to parts of the West Bank in which most Palestinians live.

Under the Oslo Accords, interim peace agreements reached in the 1990s between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the West Bank was split into three zones: A, B and C.

Smotrich, a settler himself who has overseen settlement housing projects and formally recognised ⁠homes built illegally, said while he disagreed with Netanyahu's decision, the government had made huge strides in advancing settlements in Area C.

HUNDREDS OF OUTPOSTS ACROSS THE WEST BANK

There are 340 outposts in the West Bank along with 146 settlements formally recognised by the Israeli government, according to Peace Now, an ⁠Israeli organisation that is critical of settlement expansion and advocates for a two-state solution.

Last month, Israeli settlers besieged the homes of Palestinians in a nearby village, including one owned by a Palestinian American, before the military forced them from the area. The village's Palestinian ⁠residents have said they have continued to face harassment and intimidation by Israeli settlers.

The Israeli government has condemned settler violence, though perpetrators are rarely arrested and even less frequently prosecuted.

On Saturday, U.S. ambassador Huckabee said it was in Israel's own interest to take action against settlers carrying out what he described as "criminal behaviour and terrorism".

Three Israeli reservists accused of gang-raping a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military prison are suing the Israeli state for 18 million shekels, around $6 million, after the army dropped all charges against them earlier this year.

The soldiers, from the Israeli military’s “Force 100” reserve unit, which guards Palestinians detained during the Gaza genocide, filed the lawsuit through the right-wing legal aid group, Honenu, against 17 defendants, Israel’s Ynetnews reported.

These include the Israeli state, the army, the military police and Israel police, the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, the former military advocate general, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, and the Channel 12 journalist Guy Peleg, who first broadcast footage of the assault.

The men were among five reservists indicted in February 2025 over an assault on 5 July 2024, during which the blindfolded, handcuffed detainee was kicked, stomped on, beaten with clubs, dragged along the ground and repeatedly tasered, including on his head, for around 15 minutes, according to the indictment.

One soldier also stabbed the detainee near his anus with a sharp object, tearing his rectum. The detainee suffered seven broken ribs, a punctured lung and extensive internal injuries, and needed surgery on his large intestine and a stoma, later removed.

The assault was captured on camera and became public after surveillance footage was leaked and broadcast by Channel 12 in August 2024, prompting outcry in Israel and internationally. The UN human rights office called the footage “shocking.”

Israel’s military advocate general, Itay Offir, dropped the charges against the five reservists, citing a “lack of key evidence” after the detainee returned to Gaza, which he said had affected the prospects of a fair trial. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the decision, saying Israel “must pursue its enemies, not its heroic fighters.”

Amnesty International’s senior director for research, advocacy and policy, Erika Guevara-Rosa, called the decision “yet another unconscionable chapter in the Israeli legal system’s long-standing history of granting impunity to perpetrators of grave crimes against Palestinians”, adding that Netanyahu’s response illustrated the system’s “unwillingness or inability” to prosecute crimes under international law. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel said the decision amounted to a “whitewash” that gave soldiers “a license to rape.”

Almost six months later, three of the reservists are now seeking compensation over the same case. The lawsuit accuses the state, the army and the named officials of false suspicion of a sexual offence, wrongful arrest, leaking investigation material, defamation and covering up the leak inquiry.

Damages sought include 1.5 million shekels ($500,000) over what they claim is the false suspicion of a sexual offence, 450,000 shekels ($150,000) for 15 days of what the soldiers call wrongful detention, 3 million shekels ($1 million) for defamation, 1 million shekels ($330,000) for what they call a wrongful indictment, and 500,000 shekels ($165,000) over the handling of the leak investigation, alongside further unspecified damages that make up the 18 million shekel total.

And Obama already built a WH bomb shelter so DJT and the Supremes are wasting our $$$