Israel is allocating tens of millions of shekels to a newly-created “Hills Administration” to combat anti-Arab violence in Judea and Samaria.
While nearly all Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria are law-abiding, a very small group of primarily troubled youth have generated international headlines by engaging in graffiti, vandalism, and arson.
Speaking to Fox News, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decried efforts to equate this violence with Palestinian terrorism: “They put a false symmetry between these teenagers and over a thousand terrorist attacks against the settlers.”
Palestinians inspect the damage to their vehicles after Jewish settlers set fire to them during an attack on the village of Arif, south of Nablus (biblical Shechem) on January 21, 2026. Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90
Palestinian terrorists targeted Israeli Jews in Judea and Samaria at least 5,051 times in 2025, according to figures published by the Rescuers Without Borders (Hatzalah Judea and Samaria) NGO this month.
Twenty-four Israelis were murdered in Judea and Samaria in 2025, and more than 400 others were wounded, the NGO said in its annual report.
While these numbers far outstrip the violent actions of those who have come to be known in Israel as the “Hilltop Youth,” Netanyahu still firmly condemned their behavior.
“They do things like chopping olive trees and sometimes they try to burn a home—I can’t accept that; that’s vigilantism,” he said in a December interview with American media. “Even if it’s not symmetrical, I want peaceful coexistence between the Israelis and the Palestinians who live in Judea and Samaria, which is part of our ancestral homeland.”
Hebrew grafitti on a Palestinian Arab home in Samaria. Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90
The new program, which is being promoted by Defense Minister Israel Katz, calls for the creation of a new unit within the Defense Ministry to coordinate a response for at-risk youth.
Under the plan, the Defense Ministry would receive two million shekels (about $500,000) annually through 2028 to fund the new unit, in addition to six million shekels ($1.6 million) for programs focused on pre-military preparation and encouraging military enlistment among at-risk youth.
The Education Ministry will run a dedicated youth program with a budget of approximately 36 million shekels ($10 million), alongside increased funding for social workers and initiatives to halt violence.
Meanwhile, Israel’s National Security Ministry will allocate five million shekels a year ($1.4 million) through 2028 to bolster policing involving the youth, while the Ministry of Settlement and National Missions will establish a national center by the name of “The Next Generation.”
The Labor Ministry will allocate some 50 million shekels ($14 million) until 2028 for vocational training and professional development tools.
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