# Proof Narrative: The Israeli settler population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem surpassed 700,000 by December 2023 per the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, representing more than 20 percent growth since 2010.

## Verdict

**Verdict: PROVED (with unverified citations)**

The numbers check out — and then some. The settler population not only cleared 700,000 by the end of 2023, it cleared it by roughly 50,000, and the growth since 2010 was not just above the claimed 20% but closer to 47%.

## What was claimed?

The claim is that, by December 2023, the combined number of Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem had passed 700,000 — according to Israeli government statistics — and that this represented more than 20% growth compared to 2010. This matters because the settler population is a central variable in debates about the viability of a two-state solution, the pace of territorial change, and international legal obligations. A figure of 700,000 has become a widely cited milestone in this discussion.

## What did we find?

The West Bank settler population at the end of 2023 was 503,732, according to Peace Now's Settlement Watch, which draws on data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. East Jerusalem adds another 246,000 Jewish settlers, based on Wikipedia's population statistics article, which in turn cites Israeli CBS and Jerusalem Institute data. Combined, the 2023 total comes to 749,732 — about 50,000 above the claimed threshold.

The West Bank figure was independently confirmed by the Jewish Virtual Library, which publishes CBS-sourced settler counts separately. The two sources agree to within 0.15% for 2023 (503,732 vs. 502,991), a level of agreement that is as close as you'd expect from independently compiled reports of the same underlying government data.

Going back to 2010, the combined baseline was 509,729 — West Bank at 311,100 and East Jerusalem at 198,629. The growth from 2010 to 2023 works out to 47.1%, far exceeding the "more than 20%" figure in the claim. The claim's 20% figure is a significant understatement; actual growth was more than twice that.

The math was also stress-tested against the most conservative plausible numbers. Even using the lower Jewish Virtual Library West Bank figure for 2023, and UN OCHA's East Jerusalem estimate of 230,000 rather than 246,000, the combined total is still around 733,000 — comfortably above the threshold. Under the most conservative 2010 baseline, growth still comes out to roughly 49%.

One nuance worth knowing: the Israeli CBS does not publish a single combined "settler population" figure that adds West Bank and East Jerusalem together. The 700,000 number is derived by combining two separate CBS data streams — one for Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), another for the Jerusalem District — following standard practice used by the UN, EU, and organizations like Peace Now. The claim's attribution "per the Israeli CBS" accurately describes the origin of the data, even though no single CBS publication presents this combined total.

## What should you keep in mind?

The East Jerusalem figure relies on a single source (Wikipedia), whereas the West Bank figure was cross-checked across two independent sources. That said, even if the East Jerusalem figure were revised downward to the 230,000 used by UN OCHA, the combined total would still exceed 700,000 by more than 30,000. The verdict is not sensitive to this.

The Peace Now website delivers its settler population chart data through JavaScript, so automated verification of the specific figures (503,732 and 311,100) from their raw page failed. The source attribution itself was confirmed, and the figures are independently corroborated by the Jewish Virtual Library. This is why the verdict carries the qualifier "with unverified citations" — the numbers are solid, but one automated citation check was incomplete.

"East Jerusalem" has different boundaries depending on who is measuring. Wikipedia uses 246,000; UN OCHA uses approximately 230,000; other sources go higher. None of these definitions change the conclusion. The claim also does not address the contested legal status of these settlements or the political questions surrounding them; it concerns only the population figures.

## How was this verified?

This claim was evaluated by defining it precisely as two testable sub-claims, locating primary data from Israeli CBS-citing sources, computing the combined totals and growth percentage, then running adversarial checks to look for evidence that could undermine the result. Full details are in [the structured proof report](proof.md) and [the full verification audit](proof_audit.md), and the complete calculation can be inspected or [re-run the proof yourself](proof.py).