An Israeli district court has rejected a petition filed by residents of the Palestinian village of Umm al-Kheir and Peace Now.The petition sought an interim injunction to block the settlement of an unauthorized outpost built adjacent to the village. The court also lifted a temporary order it had issued on October 12, 2025. Despite an earlier order that barred construction and habitation at the site, work continued nonethelessand several families moved into the outposts’ caravans.
The ruling effectively permits ongoing construction at the outpost, even though there is no approved zoning plan, building permits, or any legal authorization under Israeli law. The petition, filed by attorney Michael Sfard, argued that settlers were carrying out illegal construction directly adjacent to Umm Al-Khair, causing severe damage to the village’s water and electricity infrastructure.
In late July, settlers began preparing the land for the new outpost just meters from village homes. They installed four caravans in violation of the area’s master plan and later added three more. During land-clearing work that month, a village resident, Odeh Hdalin, was shot and killed by a settler while standing dozens of meters away and documenting the events.
Peace Now: “The court’s willingness to ignore the violation of its own order is a direct result of the government’s ongoing judicial overhaul. The ruling effectively gives the government and the settlers a green light to flout the law and not only that, to disregard the court’s instructions as well , abandoning any pretense of upholding the rule of law. The residents of Umm al-Khair, who endure daily harassment by settlers, are the direct victims of state authorities that have subordinated themselves to an ideology seeking to impose Jewish supremacy in the occupied territories.”
Background to the Petition
Umm al-Kheir is a Palestinian village of roughly 200 Bedouin residents whose families originate from the Negev. After 1948, they were forced to leave their land in the Negev, moved to the South Hebron Hills, purchased property, and settled in the Masafer Yatta area during the period of Jordanian rule in the West Bank.
Under Israeli occupation, the state does not recognize Umm al-Kheir as a legally authorized place of residence. Officials refuse to issue building permits to the villagers and classify all structures in the community as “illegal.” According to data from OCHA, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israel has demolished 56 structures in the village over the past 15 years.
In the early 1980s, Israel declared roughly 4,000 dunams in the area as state land and allocated it to the Settlement Division for the establishment of the Carmel and Ma’on settlements. The settlement of Carmel was built directly alongside Umm al-Kheir’s lands.
In 2005, the Higher Planning Council approved Plan 507/1 for Carmel, which incorporated approximately 2,200 dunams of surrounding open land into the settlement’s planned area. About seven dunams of that land lie within the built-up area of Umm al-Kheir itself, and it is on this parcel that the recent caravans were erected. Under the plan, all the open land on which the outpost was built is designated as agricultural space, not as residential zoned land.