Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday attended the inaugural ceremonies of the new Hatayelet (Promenade) neighborhood in Kibbutz Migdal Oz in Gush Etzion.
The prime minister was accompanied by his wife, Sara Netanyahu, Noam Leiter, son of US Ambassador Yechiel Leiter, and Ofri Nir, whose father was killed in combat in Gaza in January of 2024. Netanyahu spoke of the community's growth as a “symbolic act” of historical return, national survival, and continuity.
The inauguration comes amid a broader government push to expand Jewish communities in the West Bank, particularly in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 terror attacks in southern Israel in 2023.
Government has approved dozens of new settlements
Since the war's onset, the government has approved dozens of new settlements and witnessed the rapid establishment and expansion of at least 100 unauthorized outposts, according to the United Nations and the Israeli anti-settlement group, PeaceNow.
Hateyelet’s inauguration marks another step in the development of Kibbutz Migdal Oz, which, according to the Prime Minister's Office, is expected to "double its size within a year."
According to a 2025 public opinion survey conducted by the Shield of Abraham, a majority of Israelis are critical of settlement expansions and that steps like these “harm Israel's international standing.” Some government officials and settlement advocates counter that the developments strengthen security for inland Israeli population centers and reassert historical Jewish ties to the land.
At the unveiling, the prime minister called the community a “manifestation of our spirit of vitality and of our sacred mission: to take root in our homeland despite our enemies, despite all the pressures; and to ensure that we are not merely treading over the past of the nation of Israel, but that we are securing its future.”
The inauguration is the latest in a series of government visits to West Bank settlements since Netanyahu's government took office in December 2022.