The Settlement Division operates as part of the World Zionist Organization. It helps build establish communities inside the State of Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The State of Israel provides its entire budget and it serves in practice as the executive arm of various government ministries for building and establishing settlements. Over time, responsibility for the Settlement Division has been transferred from ministry to ministry as part of political negotiations, and the Ministry of Settlement and National Missions currently defines its operative goals and workplan and supervises its implementation. As of September 2026, Yishai Merling heads the Settlement Division. Merling resides in the settlement Efrat and is the founder and chair of Likudim, the Likud National Forum, which promoted the Likud Party Central Committee’s decision in favor of annexing the West Bank. The Settlement Division plays a central role in applying Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank by transferring land administered by the State to the settlement enterprise, as well as planning and developing settlements. The Supervisor of Governmental and Abandoned Property within the Civil Administration allocates land to the Settlement Division, which in turn oversees planning for settlements and then allocates said land to settlers and settlement-related bodies. In this way, rights to much of the land declared “state land” in the West Bank have been transferred to settlement bodies.

The Settlement Division has also been involved in building and establishing unauthorized outposts built without official government resolution since the 1990s. According to the Sasson Report, the Settlement Division exceeded its authority and operated in violation to its authorization agreements: it sub-allocated land without the Supervisor’s permission, transferred land it received only for planning, and operated to build outposts without valid building plans. Some of the outposts exceeded the boundaries of allocated land and extended to privately-owned Palestinian land or “survey land” whose ownership status had not been determined. Thus, even when it did not hold rights enabling it to transfer the land to other parties, the Settlement Division continued to allocate land to settlers and parties linked to outposts.

Thus, for decades the Settlement Division served as a central mechanism by which the Government of Israel allocates land, plans and develops settlements, funds infrastructure and establishes a permanent civilian Israeli presence in the West Bank. These operations contribute to enhancing Israeli control in the occupied territory and expanding the settlement enterprise, which are central in the process of annexing the West Bank to Israel.