In a provocative move that escalates tensions over territorial and religious claims in the occupied West Bank, hundreds of Israeli settlers, led by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, forced their way into the Joseph’s Tomb compound in the heart of Nablus early Wednesday, protected by heavy Israeli military deployment.
Israeli troops launched pre-emptive raids on residential areas of the Palestinian city and closed all major entry checkpoints to clear the path for the visit, which included organized morning prayers for the settler group. Official Israeli estimates place the total number of Israelis who entered the compound overnight at approximately 5,000.
During the visit, Smotrich — who also holds a senior role in Israel’s defense ministry overseeing the civil administration of the occupied West Bank — doubled down on his longstanding goal of cementing permanent Israeli control over the religious site, which falls under the administrative jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. Smotrich framed the incursion as a symbolic and political milestone, stating, “Our presence here at Joseph’s Tomb, in broad daylight, is a clear statement: the people of Israel are returning home to all parts of their land. Joseph’s Tomb is living testimony to the inseparable connection between the people of Israel and their land.”
The far-right minister went on to pledge to formally transfer full administrative control of the compound to the Israeli government, calling the incursion “another step in a historic correction and in strengthening our hold on Samaria” — the Israeli term for the northern West Bank. “We are acting, and will continue to act, so that the Jewish presence here becomes permanent,” he said, before issuing a formal call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz to expand Israeli sovereignty over the site, adding that the move “is the most fitting Zionist response to our enemies – deepening our roots in our land.”
Wednesday’s incursion is the latest in a years-long pattern of accelerating de facto annexation of the West Bank led by Smotrich, who took office as part of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition government in December 2022. Under his leadership, Israel has overseen one of the largest waves of land seizure in the occupied territory in decades, alongside a sharp rise in incursions into contested religious and heritage sites across the region. These include the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, both flashpoints for religious and political conflict.
A recent investigation published by Israeli daily Haaretz this week revealed that Smotrich has prioritized settlement expansion in the West Bank over his core duties as finance minister over the past two years. Between 2024 and 2025, the report found, Smotrich held more than 65 private meetings with Yehuda Eliyahu, his close political ally who until recently led the Settlement Administration within the defense ministry. Eliyahu was appointed last week to head the Israel Land Authority, the state body responsible for managing and allocating public land in both Israel and the occupied West Bank, a move that analysts say will further enable Smotrich’s annexation agenda. By comparison, Haaretz recorded that Smotrich met with senior Finance Ministry officials only around 30 times in the same two-year period.
The Joseph’s Tomb site itself has been a source of repeated conflict for decades. While many Jewish worshippers revere the site as the burial place of the biblical Prophet Joseph, Palestinians identify it as the tomb of Sheikh Yusuf Dweikat, a local 19th-century Islamic cleric, and it sits within a densely populated Palestinian city. Israeli military-backed settler visits to the site began in the early 1980s after Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, and these incursions have consistently sparked widespread Palestinian resistance. Israel withdrew its permanent military garrison from the compound in 2000, but has continued to organize monthly escorted visits for settlers. Since the October 2023 Hamas attack, these incursions have grown dramatically in size and frequency, with far-right politicians and activists repeatedly calling for a full reoccupation of the site and the re-establishment of permanent Jewish presence.
Multiple senior far-right Israeli figures joined Smotrich on Wednesday’s visit, doubling down on calls for annexation. Tzvi Sukkot, a member of parliament from Smotrich’s own Religious Zionist Party and chair of the Knesset’s Education, Culture and Sports Committee, entered the compound alongside the group. Sukkot has long pushed for full Israeli control of the site, and introduced parliamentary legislation in July 2025 to formally annex Joseph’s Tomb to Israel, a proposal that has not yet moved forward. “From here, we send one demand: restore the Jewish presence,” Sukkot said Wednesday.
Wednesday’s authorized prayer visit followed a December 2024 order from Defense Minister Israel Katz that formally permitted Jewish worshippers to hold prayer services at the site during the early morning hours. A similar large-scale settler prayer visit was organized at the compound in January 2025, which participants described as “historic.”
Yossi Dagan, head of the Shomron Regional Council that governs Israeli settlements in the northern West Bank, called Wednesday’s incursion “a historic morning marking another step toward the full return of the State of Israel to this sacred compound.” Dagan argued that the status quo of limited, military-escorted monthly visits could not continue, stating that the end goal is “the full and permanent return of the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva to its natural place, and for the Israeli flag to fly over Joseph’s Tomb.” The religious yeshiva was first established at the site in the 1980s, but was evacuated alongside the Israeli military post in the early 2000s. Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the current head of the yeshiva, echoed Dagan’s call Wednesday, saying he hoped to “return and establish a permanent presence at Joseph’s Tomb” and urging supporters not to “forsake the city of the covenant.”
The incursion comes amid growing international concern over Israel’s accelerating settlement expansion and de facto annexation of the West Bank, which violates multiple UN Security Council resolutions and international law rulings that deem all Israeli settlements in the 1967 occupied territories illegal.