In the early morning hours of September 22, 2010, an armed security guard fatally shot Samer Sarhan, a 32-year-old resident of East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood. The guard claimed that he was hit with stones, and his life was in danger. Silwan residents dispute this, saying Sarhan was coming home from work and the guard prevented him from returning to his house. According to residents, the confrontation escalated, and the guard shot Sarhan.1 The guard was never indicted and to this day, private security guards patrol the streets of Silwan “protecting” settlers while endangering Palestinians.2

Data from Israel’s Ministry of Finance, which Israeli activist group Peace Now gathered, shows that the Israeli government spent around NIS 101 million (approximately $29 million) in 2024 alone to guard settlers across several Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.3

Currently, around 3,000 settlers live in Palestinian neighborhoods throughout East Jerusalem, meaning, according to Peace Now, that the government spent NIS 3,000 a month ($855) on security for each settler in 2024.4

Israel’s Ministry of Housing hires private security companies to guard Israeli settler compounds in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and accompany settlers as they travel to and from their homes. As more and more settlers seize Palestinian properties in these areas each year, the budget for their security grows.

For instance, the 2024 budget was set at NIS 38.6 million (about $11 million), but in actuality, the state spent NIS 101 million ($29 million) on settler security in East Jerusalem that year. Since 2017, spending has hit or surpassed NIS 80 million (roughly $23 million) annually. According to analysis from Peace Now, since 1997, almost all actual annual expenditures greatly exceeded the approved budget. In fact, from 1997 to 2024, Israel spent over NIS 2.6 billion ($749 million) to guard settlers in East Jerusalem. The 2025 budget stands at NIS 93.2 million ($26.7 million), but given past spending patterns, the real cost is likely to exceed that budgetary figure.5

“[The money] allocated in 2024 to guard settlers is not just a financial figure or statistic, it’s a clear signal of priorities by investing in occupation and displacement rather than in developments or infrastructure in the Eastern side of occupied Jerusalem,” said Yazan Risheq from Grassroots Al-Quds, a Palestinian organization that supports Palestinian networking and community mobilization in Jerusalem.6 “It is not about security, it is about control, hegemony, and imposing a new reality on Palestinians in Jerusalem.”

The idea of using private security over traditional police officers is the brainchild of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who, in the early 1990s, hired private security firms to guard his home in the Old City’s Muslim Quarter while he served as housing minister. In 2006, following clashes between security guards and Palestinians, a government-appointed committee recommended transferring the responsibility of security for settlers to the police.7 While this recommendation was adopted, the government overturned it the following year.8

A year after a private security guard killed Sarhan, on October 31, 2011, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court, demanding an end to the use of private security guards to patrol settlements. The court rejected the petition, allowing the government to continue funding the private security of settlements.9

“It’s about masking your state’s violation of human rights,” Neve Gordon, international law and human rights professor at Queen Mary University of London, told Jerusalem Story.10

“You subcontract the violations that are carried out, and then the state no longer is immediately responsible, because it masks its responsibility through this kind of outsourcing.”

Gordon explained that if a crime is committed by a private guard, the blame is then defaulted to the security firm and not the state.

“The state will say, ‘It’s not us, it’s this private security company and their personnel that weren’t trained the way they should have been,’” Gordon said. “It’s a way of distancing yourself through a proxy.”

Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Ir Amim, an Israeli rights group monitoring Jerusalem policy, added that the advantage of using private security over police is that unlike government entities, private companies are not bound by transparency.

“We can hold the police somewhat accountable. With private security, it’s much less so,” Tatarsky said, explaining that private security guards consider themselves as being in service to the settlers and therefore will follow settlers’ orders.11

“It’s basically an armed part of the settler project,” Tatarsky added.

This so-called protection provided by private security, Tatarsky noted, is an act of suppression against the Palestinians’ right to defend their homes.

“What Israel and the settlers will call protection is oppressing any form of backlash and resistance, which allows the settlers to feel comfortable and safe to carry on and expand the Judaization process [of Palestinian neighborhoods],” Tatarsky said.

So not only are these guards giving settlers a sense of security, but also a notion of normalcy to what they’re doing to East Jerusalem neighborhoods.

“As Palestinians living in Jerusalem, we experience the presence of private security guards for settlers not as protection, but as a reflection of a systemic tension in the city,” Risheq said.

“Their presence normalizes the violent takeover of our homes and streets by settlers, often at the expense of our own safety and freedom of movement.”