Masyarakat internasional menganggap permukiman Israel di Tepi Barat sebagai ilegal menurut hukum internasional.[6][7][8][9] Area C berisi 230 permukiman Israel yang di dalamnya berlaku hukum Israel dan berdasarkan Perjanjian Oslo, sebagian besar permukiman tersebut seharusnya dialihkan ke PNA pada tahun 1997, namun hal ini tidak terjadi.[10] Mengutip undang-undang tahun 1980 di mana Israel mengklaim Yerusalem sebagai ibu kotanya, perjanjian perdamaian Israel-Yordania tahun 1994, dan Perjanjian Oslo, sebuah keputusan penasehat tahun 2004 dari Mahkamah Internasional menyimpulkan bahwa Tepi Barat, termasuk Yerusalem Timur, masih merupakan wilayah yang diduduki Israel.[11]
Tepi Barat memiliki luas wilayah sekitar 5.640 kilometer persegi (2.180 mil persegi). Diperkirakan terdapat 2.747.943 penduduk Palestina, dan lebih dari 670.000 pemukim Israel tinggal di Tepi Barat, di mana sekitar 220.000 di antaranya tinggal di Yerusalem Timur.
^Lebih dari 670.000 pemukim Israel tinggal di Tepi Barat pada tahun 2022; sekitar 227.100 pemukim Israel tinggal di Yerusalem Timur pada tahun 2019.[4]
^Roberts, Adam (1990). "Prolonged Military Occupation: The Israeli-Occupied Territories Since 1967"(PDF). The American Journal of International Law. 84 (1): 85–86. doi:10.2307/2203016. JSTOR2203016. Diarsipkan dari versi asli(PDF) tanggal 2020-02-15. The international community has taken a critical view of both deportations and settlements as being contrary to international law. General Assembly resolutions have condemned the deportations since 1969, and have done so by overwhelming majorities in recent years. Likewise, they have consistently deplored the establishment of settlements, and have done so by overwhelming majorities throughout the period (since the end of 1976) of the rapid expansion in their numbers. The Security Council has also been critical of deportations and settlements; and other bodies have viewed them as an obstacle to peace, and illegal under international law... Although East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have been brought directly under Israeli law, by acts that amount to annexation, both of these areas continue to be viewed by the international community as occupied, and their status as regards the applicability of international rules is in most respects identical to that of the West Bank and Gaza.Parameter |url-status= yang tidak diketahui akan diabaikan (bantuan); Parameter |s2cid= yang tidak diketahui akan diabaikan (bantuan)
^"West Bank". Central Intelligence Agency. 17 October 2023 – via CIA.gov.
^"West Bank", The World Factbook (dalam bahasa Inggris), Central Intelligence Agency, 2022-09-27, diarsipkan dari versi asli tanggal 22 July 2021, diakses tanggal 2022-09-30Parameter |url-status= yang tidak diketahui akan diabaikan (bantuan)
^Roberts, Adam (1990). "Prolonged Military Occupation: The Israeli-Occupied Territories Since 1967"(PDF). The American Journal of International Law. 84 (1): 85–86. doi:10.2307/2203016. JSTOR2203016. Diarsipkan dari versi asli(PDF) tanggal 2020-02-15. The international community has taken a critical view of both deportations and settlements as being contrary to international law. General Assembly resolutions have condemned the deportations since 1969, and have done so by overwhelming majorities in recent years. Likewise, they have consistently deplored the establishment of settlements, and have done so by overwhelming majorities throughout the period (since the end of 1976) of the rapid expansion in their numbers. The Security Council has also been critical of deportations and settlements; and other bodies have viewed them as an obstacle to peace, and illegal under international law... Although East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have been brought directly under Israeli law, by acts that amount to annexation, both of these areas continue to be viewed by the international community as occupied, and their status as regards the applicability of international rules is in most respects identical to that of the West Bank and Gaza.Parameter |s2cid= yang tidak diketahui akan diabaikan (bantuan); Parameter |url-status= yang tidak diketahui akan diabaikan (bantuan)
^Pertile, Marco (2005). "'Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory': A Missed Opportunity for International Humanitarian Law?". Dalam Conforti, Benedetto; Bravo, Luigi. The Italian Yearbook of International Law. 14. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. hlm. 141. ISBN978-90-04-15027-0. the establishment of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been considered illegal by the international community and by the majority of legal scholars.
^Barak-Erez, Daphne (2006). "Israel: The security barrier—between international law, constitutional law, and domestic judicial review". International Journal of Constitutional Law. 4 (3): 548. doi:10.1093/icon/mol021. The real controversy hovering over all the litigation on the security barrier concerns the fate of the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Since 1967, Israel has allowed and even encouraged its citizens to live in the new settlements established in the territories, motivated by religious and national sentiments attached to the history of the Jewish nation in the land of Israel. This policy has also been justified in terms of security interests, taking into consideration the dangerous geographic circumstances of Israel before 1967 (where Israeli areas on the Mediterranean coast were potentially threatened by Jordanian control of the West Bank ridge). The international community, for its part, has viewed this policy as patently illegal, based on the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention that prohibit moving populations to or from territories under occupation.
^Drew, Catriona (1997). "Self-determination and population transfer". Dalam Bowen, Stephen. Human rights, self-determination and political change in the occupied Palestinian territories. International studies in human rights. 52. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. hlm. 151–152. ISBN978-90-411-0502-8. It can thus clearly be concluded that the transfer of Israeli settlers into the occupied territories violates not only the laws of belligerent occupation but the Palestinian right of self-determination under international law. The question remains, however, whether this is of any practical value. In other words, given the view of the international community that the Israeli settlements are illegal under the law if belligerent occupation, what purpose does it serve to establish that an additional breach of international law has occurred?