The High Court of Justice on Wednesday issued an interim injunction ordering the state to act, within the framework of its authority and the law, to remove settler Moshe Sharvit and anyone acting on his behalf from the lands at the center of a petition filed by Palestinian farmers from the Jordan Valley, pending further decision in the case.
The ruling was issued before Justices Daphne Barak-Erez, Alex Stein, and Yechiel Kasher. According to the decision, the court acted after reviewing a February 18 request for interim relief, responses filed by the state on February 24, an updated notice by the petitioners on March 5, and a Wednesday extension request by the state respondents.
The panel also directed that a hearing be set on the opposition to the previously issued conditional order, with a response affidavit to be filed no later than 14 days before the hearing date.
In practical terms, the injunction means the military and Civil Administration must now take affirmative steps to keep Sharvit and his representatives away from the disputed lands, subject only to what the court described as urgent and absolute military needs, until another ruling is handed down.
The underlying petition was filed on June 29, 2025, by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel on behalf of 12 Palestinian farmers from the Wadi al-Far’a area in the Jordan Valley, alongside the rights group Bimkom - Planning and Human Rights.
High Court steps in over Jordan Valley settler disputes
The petition argues that the farmers have effectively been cut off from the lands they own and cultivate since October 2023, after Sharvit allegedly blocked the access road and began driving farmers away through threats, harassment, and assaults.
The state respondents are the commander of IDF forces in the West Bank and the head of the Civil Administration, while Sharvit is listed as the third respondent.
In late February, the High Court had already issued a conditional order instructing the state to explain why it had not used its authority to remove Sharvit from the land and residential areas of the petitioners, prevent him from exceeding the areas allocated to him, and ensure the residents could reach and work their farmland.
That earlier order followed sharp scrutiny from the bench over what the petition described as prolonged state inaction. At the time, the court specifically referenced a gate allegedly erected on the access road to the farmers’ land and demanded an explanation for the authorities’ failure to ensure the farmers' safe access to their plots.
According to ACRI’s account of the case, an updated notice filed on March 5 detailed additional incidents in which Sharvit and others allegedly continued to trespass, attack, attempt to expel residents, prevent grazing, and cause bodily and property damage.
The interim injunction issued Wednesday appears to reflect the court’s conclusion that, at least pending a full merits ruling, the existing situation could not simply be left in place.
The case also arrives against the backdrop of prior legal and international action concerning Sharvit.
ACRI said that in March 2025 a restraining order was issued against him over conduct toward local Palestinian residents, and that the order was later violated.
Sharvit has also been the target of international sanctions: the UK in February 2024 described him as an extremist settler who threatened, harassed, and assaulted Palestinian shepherds and their families in the Jordan Valley, while the US Treasury sanctioned him and his outpost in March 2024 before those US designations were later removed in January 2025.
In the petition, the farmers argued that the army’s failure to protect them has resulted in their practical dispossession, severely harming their rights to life, bodily integrity, dignity, property, and freedom of movement.
They asked the court to compel the military commander to use his authority to remove Sharvit from the West Bank, or at a minimum from their agricultural and residential areas, dismantle the obstruction blocking access, and allow routine, safe, uninterrupted cultivation of their lands.