Plans unveiled this week to enlarge the Adam settlement north of occupied Jerusalem signal a renewed push to reshape the city’s surroundings through a steady expansion of Israeli control. The project, backed by substantial public funding, targets Palestinian-owned land and is presented by Israeli authorities as a development initiative, while Palestinian officials view it as another step in a wider strategy of territorial absorption pursued alongside a genocidal war that has already redrawn realities on the ground.

The scheme allocates roughly 120 million shekels to build thousands of new settler homes, accompanied by roads and service networks designed exclusively for settlers. Infrastructure works, including water and sewage systems, are set to advance first, followed by enclosed facilities such as sports grounds, parks and leisure complexes. These amenities are planned on confiscated land, even as nearby Palestinian communities continue to face strict bans on construction, leaving families overcrowded and unable to expand legally on their own property.

Local officials warn that the expansion is not an isolated project but part of a broader pattern aimed at severing Palestinian neighbourhoods from one another and from Jerusalem itself. In areas such as Ma’azi Jaba’, settler pressure has intensified under military protection, creating conditions that make daily life increasingly untenable for residents. The cumulative effect, they argue, is to push communities towards forced displacement while consolidating a ring of settlements north and east of the city.

Beyond its immediate impact, the plan deepens the fragmentation of the West Bank by breaking geographic continuity and entrenching a settler-only infrastructure grid. Palestinian authorities say this trajectory violates international law and longstanding UN resolutions that deem settlements illegal. They caution that sustained international inaction emboldens what they describe as creeping annexation and demographic cleansing, further eroding any prospect of a future built on equality, rights and an end to occupation.