Israel pushes settlement-backed archaeology expansion in West Bank

Israel’s ultranationalist government has allocated 250 million shekels (about $86 million) to preserve, upgrade and publicise archaeological sites across the occupied West Bank. The funding, announced in May, is presented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a way to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Six‑Day War and to “preserve our past in order to secure our future.”

Settler leaders such as Israel Ganz of the Yesha Council, representing more than 500,000 settlers, stress the project’s cultural importance, while critics argue it is being used as a tool for annexation. The flagship Hasmonean Palaces near Jericho have become a flash‑point: bulldozers linked to settlers demolished 13‑15 Palestinian Bedouin homes, leaving families to live in the ruins of their houses. Human‑rights groups say the archaeology drive is accompanied by new roads, expropriation of land and ongoing displacement of Palestinians, even as the government postponed a separate antiquities authority for the territory to avoid diplomatic fallout.