On Tuesday, 17 November 2025, a group of settlers established a new outpost in East Jerusalem in the Palestinian neighborhood of Tzur Baher in an area called Dier al-Amud. A shipping container was placed on the site, and an area of approx. 10 dunams (2.5 acres) was fenced off. A sign at the location lists a company under the name of Nezem Investments, but municipal sources indicate the it is a project likely connected to the Elad settler organization. The plot is an open area located near the Eastern Ring Road and the Palestinian neighborhood of Tzur Baher, at the southeastern edge of Jerusalem’s municipal boundary.
خسارة جديدة..
مستوطنون استولوا، صباح اليوم، على أرض فلسطينية (بمساحة 6 دونمات)، في قرية صورباهر جنوب القدس، وتحديدا عند دير العمود، قرب ما يسمى “الشارع الأمريكي”.#القدس_البوصلة pic.twitter.com/L6ooP1Y9t7— القدس البوصلة (@alqudsalbawsala) November 17, 2025
As for now, it appears that this is the first step on the path to establishing an Israeli settlement, and the settlers are seeking at this stage to mark out territory and take control of the land. It is likely that this is land that was purchased by settlers from the Palestinian owners, and a sign of this is the fact that the area is in the advanced stages of settlement of land title. Settlement of Land Title (SOLT) is a process in which the final ownership of a particular area is determined and the lands are registered in the names of their owners. In East Jerusalem, most of the land did not undergo a SOLT process before 1967 and was not registered in the land registry. The State of Israel has refrained from carrying out a SOLT in East Jerusalem for political and legal reasons.
In 2018, the Israeli government decided to invest millions of shekels in settlement procedures in the East of the city, claiming that this is necessary to create certainty in land ownership and will even help Palestinian residents exercise their rights to the land. However, a study conducted by the Bimkom NGO, which monitors the settlement processes in East Jerusalem, revealed that the government is using the settlement process mainly to enable the state and settler groups to take control of land in East Jerusalem. In fact, according to Bimkom data, only one percent of the land that has been settled since 2018 has been registered in the names of Palestinian owners. It appears that the government is promoting the settlement processes precisely in those places where there are Israeli groups claiming ownership, and it is possible that the settlers’ claim of purchase in the Deir al-Amud area has led to the advancement of the settlement processes on the ground.
