By: Hagar Shezaf/ Haaretz

 The civil administration is currently executing a plan that will allow dozens of shepherds settlement outposts to be legitimized in the occupied West Bank, by using a new procedure which is being on the “country” lands with the approval of the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Labor. According to estimations 30 – 35 colonial pastoral non-legitimate outposts are expected to meet the conditions. 

 In the last ten years, shepherds outposts have turned into the most common type of settlement outposts in the West Bank, and the “Amanah” colonial movement is behind their establishment, as its number reached 50 outposts distributed over 240,000 dunums of the West Bank land, and their effect is much bigger than its area, as the herds which they are bred in them, require large grazing areas, and in this way the colonial outposts controlled the largest amount of area with the least. Thus, a method developed in which the colonial outposts control the largest amount of area with the least number of residents.

 Most of the shepherds’ farms in the West Bank work without a grazing contract from the Ministry of Agriculture, alongside that the civil administration plans to establish an agricultural section that discuss the approval of the legitimization of grazing areas for Israelis and Palestinians. It is expected to be hard on the Palestinian shepherds that will be forced to have permits that were not required from them before. 

 An official source has indicated that it was agreed with the "Amanah" movement which is responsible for building outposts that the outposts' construction would be paused until the new conditions were completed, but this did not last for a long time.