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Arabs occupy most of Judea & Samaria.
Why are they there? When did they move there?
Arabs (primarily Arabic-speaking Muslims, with some Christians) form the large majority of the population in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) due to successive waves of conquest, settlement, conversion of earlier inhabitants, natural growth, and later immigration—beginning in significant numbers after the 7th-century Muslim conquests—not as the continuous indigenous population from antiquity.
Continued below…
Early history and the shift to Arab/Muslim majority
Judea and Samaria were the historic core of the ancient Jewish kingdoms (Judah and Israel/Samaria). Jews formed the majority or a large plurality into the early centuries CE. After the Roman suppressions of the Jewish revolts (especially the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–135 CE), the Jewish population in Judea was devastated; many survivors shifted north to Galilee or were dispersed. The region became majority Christian under Byzantine rule (with remaining Jews, Samaritans, and others).Wikipedia
Arab presence existed earlier on the margins (Bedouin tribes, traders linked to the incense routes, some settlement in the south/Idumea), but Arabs were not the dominant population of the highlands of Judea and Samaria. The major change came with the Muslim Arab conquests of the Levant (c. 634–640 CE). Arab tribes from the Arabian Peninsula arrived as conquerors and settlers (estimates suggest tens to low hundreds of thousands across the broader Levant as a ruling minority initially). Over subsequent centuries under Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman rule:
Local populations (Christians, remaining Jews, Samaritans) gradually converted to Islam.
Arabic replaced earlier languages (Aramaic, Greek).
Further settlement and Bedouin sedentarization occurred. By roughly the 12th century (and more fully by the Mamluk period), the area had a Muslim majority; central Samaria Islamized earlier than some other zones.Wikipedia
This was classic conquest + conversion + cultural Arabization, not an unbroken “Arab” ethnic continuity from Canaanite or biblical times. Genetic and historical studies show Levantine Arab populations today largely descend from mixed local (pre-Islamic) ancestry plus Arabian and other inflows.
Ottoman period and later growth
Under the Ottomans (from 1517), the overall population of the region was sparse for centuries (low hundreds of thousands total in the broader Palestine area by the 16th–early 19th centuries), with Muslims the clear majority, plus smaller Christian and Jewish communities. Rural highland areas of Judea and Samaria were relatively continuous Muslim Arab settlements, while coastal plains and valleys were often less densely populated or marshy.
Significant additional Arab immigration and settlement occurred in the 19th and early 20th centuries:
Egyptians (after Muhammad Ali’s campaigns and later), Algerians, Circassians, Bosnians, and others settled, often encouraged by Ottoman policy.
Economic opportunities drew migrants from Syria (Hauran), Transjordan, Egypt, and elsewhere.
Under the British Mandate (1917–1948), Arab population growth was rapid—driven mainly by high natural increase (falling mortality) but also by documented immigration (legal and illegal), attracted by the economic development from Jewish settlement, British infrastructure, and relative stability. Estimates of Mandate-era Arab immigration vary (tens of thousands officially noted; higher figures in some analyses).Meforum
By 1947, non-Jews (overwhelmingly Arab) were the large majority across the area that became the West Bank. After the 1948 war, Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria (annexing it in 1950); the Arab population there continued growing through natural increase. Israel took control in 1967; the Arab population today is several million, still the clear majority in most of the territory outside Israeli settlements.
In short: the Arab majority resulted from the 7th-century conquest and subsequent Islamization/Arabization (over centuries), continuous presence thereafter in the highlands, plus 19th–20th-century migration and high birth rates. Jews maintained a continuous (if often minority) presence and returned in larger numbers from the late 19th century onward. The modern Palestinian Arab population of Judea and Samaria is rooted in this post-conquest history rather than exclusive pre-Islamic indigeneity.