How Israeli settlers are able to seize Palestinian land with impunity in the West Bank

Analysis How Israeli settlers are able to seize Palestinian land with impunity in the West Bank
This picture taken from Nablus on March 23, 2025 shows southeast of the city the new expansion of the Israeli settlement outpost of Itamar, on the hill overlooking the village of Beit Furik in the occupied West Bank. (AFP)
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Updated 15 April 2025
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How Israeli settlers are able to seize Palestinian land with impunity in the West Bank

How Israeli settlers are able to seize Palestinian land with impunity in the West Bank
  • Israeli settlers and IDF soldiers are increasingly acting together, blurring the lines between military force and mob violence
  • Palestinians face growing displacement, home demolitions, and intimidation under punitive laws and unchecked settler expansion

LONDON: Attacks on Palestinian villagers in the West Bank by Israeli settlers, and the seizure or demolition of their properties under lopsided laws, are nothing new. But, ever since the start of the war in Gaza, the number and nature of such incidents has intensified.

Several attacks over the past few weeks have added to the impression that not only have settlers been given carte blanche to do as they please, but also that discipline within the ranks of the Israeli army operating in the West Bank is breaking down.

Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 917 Palestinians, including militants, in the West Bank.

On March 27, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, revealed that in the first three months of this year alone, 99 Palestinians had been killed during operations by Israeli forces in the West Bank.

Tens of thousands had been displaced from their homes, 10 UN-run schools had been forced to close, and 431 homes lacking impossible-to-acquire Israeli-issued building permits had been demolished — twice as many as over the same period last year.




An Israeli army soldier walks with a blindfolded man being detained, towards an armoured vehicle during a military operation in Nablus in the occupied West Bank on April 8, 2025. (AFP)

Occasionally, such attacks are caught on camera. That was the case at the beginning of this month, when footage circulated purportedly showing masked settlers attacking the village of Duma in the northern West Bank, setting fire to homes.

On Feb. 29, dozens of settlers, accompanied by Israel Defense Forces personnel, descended on Jinba, a shepherding community, where, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “uniformed and civilian-dressed Israelis raided the village, broke into all the homes, dumped food, vandalized appliances and terrorized the locals.”

The supposed trigger for the attack on the village, after which dozens of Palestinian men were rounded up and arrested, was an alleged assault on a settler shepherd. In fact, phone footage later emerged appearing to show the man in question approaching Palestinians and their flock on an all-terrain vehicle and physically assaulting one of them.

“Land seizures and violence by settlers is not new, but there has been a huge increase,” Alon Cohen-Lifshitz, an architect and adviser to the Israeli nongovernmental organization Planners for Planning Rights, or Bimkom, told Arab News.

“What has changed is that there is now widespread collaboration between the settlers, the army, the authorities, and the police. Now, the army is the settler.”




Charred cars sit at the entrance of the occupied West Bank village of Duma, in the aftermath of an Israeli settler attack, on April 17, 2024. (AFP)

Often those involved in violence and intimidation are from IDF reserve units, whose members are settlers and are deployed near their own settlements, and “sometimes they are wearing uniforms, sometimes not.”

Rarely is anyone arrested. “The police put obstacles in the way of Palestinians who come to submit complaints,” said Cohen-Lifshitz.

“The army, the police, and the settlers have become a single unit, working together against the poorest, most fragile and marginalized communities that don’t do any harm. These people are not involved in anything, but they live in fear of the settlers.” 

Their “crime” is that “they are living on land which Israel and the settlers want to control and ethnically cleanse,” he added.

Planning law is also being deployed against Palestinians in the West Bank. “Israel is using it like a weapon to conquer land,” said Cohen-Lifshitz.




According to Cohen-Lifshitz, “The army, the police, and the settlers have become a single unit, working together against the poorest, most fragile and marginalized communities that don’t do any harm.” (AFP)

It was planning law, he said, that led to the creation of settlements and the fragmentation of the West Bank, and “there are plans for the Palestinians, too, but the aim of these is to limit the development, to create very small areas in which building is allowed, but at a very high density, which is not how it used to be in Palestinian villages.

“There, it was about 10 units per hectare. Now the plans for Palestinian areas propose urban densities of 100 units, allowing the authorities to justify demolitions outside these areas.”

Over the past two years, however, “there has been a huge expansion in settlement outposts and farms. But, as far as we know, not a single permit for Palestinian building has been approved.”

Apparent indiscipline in the IDF ranks has not escaped the notice of the military top brass, who appear keen to ascribe poor conduct to reserve soldiers rather than core personnel.




Israeli excavators carry out the demolition of Palestinian buildings constructed without a permit in the village of Al-Samua, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, on April 8, 2025. (AFP)

Although he did not comment on the violence in Duma, Israel’s top commander in the occupied West Bank, Major General Avi Bluth, condemned the actions of reservists during a raid on the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem on April 2.

Images shared on social media showed vandalized apartments, where furniture was broken and Israeli nationalist slogans spray painted on walls. In a video shared by the army last week, Bluth said that “the conduct in Dheisheh by our reserve soldiers is not what we stand for.”

“Vandalism and graffiti during an operational mission are, from our perspective, unacceptable incidents. It is inconceivable that IDF soldiers do not act according to their commanders’ orders,” he added.




A Palestinian man walks past graffiti reading in Hebrew: “Revenge (R), Fight the enemy, not the ally (L)”, in a building after an attack by Israeli settlers, near the West Bank city of Salfit on April 8, 2025. (AFP)

It would be a mistake, however, to interpret the escalation in violence in the West Bank as the result of a collapse of discipline, said Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, who served in the Israeli army for six years and took part in the 1982 Lebanon war.

“This is not about discipline. This is something else — the execution of a plan,” he said. “The war in Gaza is all but over. The main front now is the West Bank, where I think the Israelis are trying to implement a big plan to empty it of its people and annex it.”

The IDF, in Bregman’s view, has changed.

“Many IDF units, especially infantry, are now dominated by right-wing settlers. They have managed to penetrate these units to such an extent that I think it is not an exaggeration to say that many units, especially infantry, which is relevant because they are on the ground, are led by settlers.”

The driving force, he believes, is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a defense minister and is responsible for the administration of the West Bank.




Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, who served in the Israeli army for six years said that many IDF units, especially infantry, are now dominated by right-wing settlers. (AFP)

Leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, Smotrich is himself a settler, who, in the words of a profile in The Times of Israel, “has long been a vociferous supporter of West Bank settlements and just as strongly opposes Palestinian statehood, subscribing to the view that Jews have a right to the whole land of Israel.”

The support of Israeli ministers for the settlers goes beyond mere words. Last year, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir gave more than 120,000 firearms to settlers. More recently, Smotrich and Orit Strock, the settlements and national missions minister, gifted 21 ATVs to illegal farms and outposts in the South Hebron hills, to be used “for security purposes.”

Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a US-registered non-profit that collects data on conflict and protest around the world, says its findings support the anecdotal evidence that violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is escalating.

“It is not always clear who is responsible,” Ameneh Mehvar, ACLED’s senior Middle East analyst, told Arab News.

“Is it always settlers, or soldiers, security squads, regional defense battalions? There is a blurring of lines. But we have definitely seen problematic behavior by soldiers in the past few weeks.”




Palestinians inspect the damage at a shop on January 21, 2025, after it was burnt in overnight Israeli settler attacks in Jinsafot village east of Qalqiliya in the occupied West Bank. (AFP)

Traditionally, she said, “the IDF’s rules of engagement in the West Bank were different. The policy of the Central Command was to limit violence and maintain the status quo — for practical reasons, as much as anything else, because settlers and Palestinians live side by side.

“But since Oct. 7, things have become much worse. There is a spirit of revenge and the soldiers feel they have the support of the rhetoric of far-right, pro-settler politicians. It isn’t necessarily that senior commanders are ordering more violence, but that junior commanders on the ground are allowing it.

“So what we’re seeing is a mix of this permissible environment, and the redeployment to the West Bank of soldiers from Gaza, coming back from the war there with the mindset that Palestinians are not humans. They use the same rules of engagement — that everyone is dangerous, anything is allowed, shoot first, and ask questions later.”

The pro-settlement parties in Israel, she said, “are no longer fringe actors, but are part of the mainstream in Israeli politics, and their aim is obviously annexation of parts of the West Bank.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu’s biggest interest is staying in power, and in order to keep his coalition together he has been giving a lot of incentives to the pro-settlement parties and politicians.”




Israeli soldiers fire teargas at Palestinian farmers as they leave their land after they were attacked by Israeli settlers as they farmed in Salem village east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on November 28, 2024. (AFP)

The IDF’s ongoing so-called “Iron Ball” operation in the northern West Bank is taking place against this background. According to the UN Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, the assault on Jenin Camp, which began two months ago, is “by far the longest and most destructive operation in the occupied West Bank since the Second Intifada in the 2000s.”

The UN says that tens of thousands of residents from Jenin, Tulkarm, Nur Shams, and Far’a refugee camps have been displaced, as the IDF has embarked on “systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and homes, aiming to permanently change the character of Palestinian cities and refugee camps at a scale unjustifiable by any purported military or law enforcement aims.”

Although the world’s attention has been focused on Israeli actions in Gaza and Lebanon, “what is happening in the West Bank is not a sideshow,” said Mehvar.

“Before Oct. 7, settler attacks were already on the rise. But now the West Bank is a powder keg that could explode at any time.”

 

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50 years on, Lebanon remains hostage to sectarian rivalries

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Syria detains two leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Updated 6 sec ago
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Syria detains two leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Syria detains two leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad
The group said the men had been detained “without any explanation of the reasons“
An official from Syria’s interior ministry confirmed the detentions

DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities have detained two senior members of the Palestinian militant faction Islamic Jihad, which took part in the October 2023 attacks on Israel from Gaza, the group’s armed wing and a Syrian official said on Tuesday.
In a statement, the Al Quds Brigades said Khaled Khaled, who heads Islamic Jihad’s operations in Syria, and Yasser Al-Zafari, who heads its organizational committee, had been in Syrian custody for five days.
The group said the men had been detained “without any explanation of the reasons” and “in a manner we would not have hoped to see from brothers,” and called for their release.
An official from Syria’s interior ministry confirmed the detentions, but did not respond to follow-up questions on why the pair had been arrested. A Palestinian source in Damascus also confirmed the arrests.
Islamic Jihad joined its ally Hamas, Gaza’s ruling group, in the attack on Israel in 2023. It is a recipient of Iranian funding and know-how, and has long had foreign headquarters in Syria and Lebanon.
But its allies in both countries have recently suffered devastating blows: an Israeli air and ground offensive last year severely weakened the Lebanese Iranian-backed group Hezbollah, and Syria’s leader Bashar Assad, closely allied to Tehran, was ousted by a rebel offensive last year.
The new Islamist leadership in Damascus has cut diplomatic ties with Iran and is hoping to rebuild Syria’s regional and international backing, not least to eliminate sanctions and fund reconstruction after a brutal 14-year civil war.
The US has given Syria a list of conditions to fulfill in exchange for partial sanctions relief, Reuters reported last month. Sources said one of the conditions was keeping Iran-backed Palestinian groups at a distance.
Israel has carried out strikes against Islamic Jihad in Syria for years. Last month, it said it struck a building on the outskirts of Damascus that it said Islamic Jihad was using as a command center, an assertion denied by the group.

Gaza ‘land of desperation’ after 50 days of total siege: UN

Gaza ‘land of desperation’ after 50 days of total siege: UN
Updated 22 April 2025
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Gaza ‘land of desperation’ after 50 days of total siege: UN

Gaza ‘land of desperation’ after 50 days of total siege: UN
  • UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini: ‘Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and manmade’
  • ‘Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of war’

GENEVA: The United Nations warned Tuesday that Gaza was facing deepening hunger 50 days into a total Israeli blockade on all aid entering the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“Gaza has become a land of desperation,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said on X.
“Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and manmade.”
After 18 months of devastating war and an Israeli blockade on aid since March 2, the UN has warned of a dire humanitarian situation for the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Palestinian territory.
Israel has accused the Palestinian militant group of diverting aid, which Hamas denies.
The heads of 12 major aid organizations warned last Thursday that “famine is not just a risk, but likely rapidly unfolding in almost all parts” of the territory.
“You can see a clear tendency toward total disaster,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA told reporters in Geneva Tuesday.
“It is true that right now is probably the worst humanitarian situation we have seen throughout the war in Gaza.”
In his post on X, Lazzarini questioned “how much longer until hollow words of condemnation will translate into action to lift the siege, resume a ceasefire and save whatever is left of humanity?”
The UNRWA chief decried that two million people in Gaza, most of them women and children, “are undergoing collective punishment.”
“The wounded, sick and elderly are deprived of medical supplies and care,” he said, even as humanitarian organizations like UNRWA have thousands of trucks waiting with supplies that risk expiring.
“Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of war,” he charged.
“The siege must be lifted, supplies must flow in, the hostages must be released, the ceasefire must resume.”


Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israel strikes kill 26

Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israel strikes kill 26
Updated 22 April 2025
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Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israel strikes kill 26

Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israel strikes kill 26
  • The renewed effort follows Hamas’s rejection last week of Israel’s latest proposal
  • Gaza’s civil defense agency said that a spate of Israeli air strikes since dawn on Tuesday killed at least 26 people

CAIRO: A Hamas delegation departed for Cairo to discuss “new ideas” aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza, an official from the group said, as Israeli air strikes killed 26 people across the territory Tuesday.
The renewed effort follows Hamas’s rejection last week of Israel’s latest proposal to secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza.
Talks have so far failed to produce any breakthrough since Israel resumed its air and ground assault on Gaza from March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire.
“The delegation will meet with Egyptian officials to discuss new ideas aimed at reaching a ceasefire,” the Hamas official said, adding the team included the group’s chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya.
The latest round of discussions come a day after newly appointed US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, urged Hamas to accept a deal that would secure the release of hostages in exchange for the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“When that happens, and hostages are released which is an urgent matter for all of us, then we hope that the humanitarian aid will flow and flow freely knowing it will be done without Hamas being able to confiscate and abuse their own people,” Huckabee said in a video statement.
Israel blocked all aid to Gaza on March 2, days before launching its renewed offensive.
Israel has accused the Palestinian militant group of diverting aid, which Hamas denies.
“Gaza has become a land of desperation,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said on X on Tuesday.
“Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and manmade.... Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of war.”
Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, brokered a truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas which began on January 19 and enabled a surge in aid, alongside the exchange of hostages and prisoners.
But that truce collapsed after disagreements emerged over the terms of the next stage.
Hamas had insisted that negotiations be held for a second phase of the truce, leading to a permanent end to the war, as outlined in the January framework.
Israel, by contrast, sought an extension of the first phase.
Following the impasse, Israel blocked aid to Gaza and resumed its military campaign.
Most recently, Israel proposed a 45-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages — an offer Hamas rejected last week.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said that a spate of Israeli air strikes since dawn on Tuesday killed at least 26 people across the territory.
Among the fatalities were nine people when a house was struck in central Khan Yunis, Mohammad Mughayyir, a senior official from the agency told AFP, adding that six others remain trapped under the rubble.
More than 10 houses were also destroyed in the strikes, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal earlier told AFP, adding that an air strike also destroyed bulldozers and equipment belonging to the Jabalia municipality in northern Gaza.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the latest strikes.
At least 1,890 people have been killed in Gaza since the military resumed its offensive, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,266, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which ignited the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.


Islamist leader among 2 dead in air strikes on Lebanon

Islamist leader among 2 dead in air strikes on Lebanon
Updated 21 min 49 sec ago
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Islamist leader among 2 dead in air strikes on Lebanon

Islamist leader among 2 dead in air strikes on Lebanon
  • Jamaa Islamiya in a statement announced the death of Hussein Atwi, calling him “an academic leader and university professor”
  • Also Tuesday, Lebanon’s health ministry said an “Israeli enemy” strike in south Lebanon’s Tyre district killed one person

BEIRUT: A leader from Hamas-aligned Jamaa Islamiya was killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike, the Lebanese Islamist group and Israel’s military said, as the health ministry reported another dead in a separate raid.
Israel has continued to carry out regular strikes on Lebanon despite a November truce with militant group Hezbollah that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities between the foes including two months of all-out war.
Lebanon’s civil defense said “an Israeli drone targeted a car” near the coastal town of Damour, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Beirut, and rescuers recovered a man’s body.
Jamaa Islamiya in a statement announced the death of Hussein Atwi, calling him “an academic leader and university professor” and saying an Israeli drone strike “targeted his car as he was traveling to his workplace in Beirut.”
The Israeli army said the air force had “eliminated” Atwi, calling him “a significant terrorist in the Jamaa Islamiya terrorist organization.”
A Lebanese security official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Atwi was a leader of Jamaa Islamiya’s armed wing, the Al-Fajr Forces.
The official said Israel had previously targeted Atwi during its recent war with Hezbollah.
An AFP photographer saw the charred wreckage of a car at the scene. The Lebanese army had cordoned off the area and forensic teams were conducting an inspection.
Jamaa Islamiya, closely linked to both Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, claimed responsibility for multiple attacks against Israel before the November 27 ceasefire.
The Israeli military said Atwi had been “involved in planning and advancing terrorist activity from Lebanon into Israeli territory” and had operated “in coordination with Hamas in Lebanon.”
It said he had “carried out rocket attacks, coordinated terrorist infrastructure... and advanced attempts to infiltrate into Israeli territory.”
Also Tuesday, Lebanon’s health ministry said an “Israeli enemy” strike in south Lebanon’s Tyre district killed one person.
Under the truce, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel was to withdraw all its forces from south Lebanon, but troops remain in five positions that it deems “strategic.”
Israel on Sunday said it had killed two senior Hezbollah members in strikes on Lebanon.
Lebanese authorities have said Israeli fire has killed some 190 people since the ceasefire.
After unclaimed rocket fire against Israel in late March, Lebanon’s army said last week it had arrested several Lebanese and Palestinian suspects, while a security official said they included three Hamas members.


Gaza’s Christians ‘heartbroken’ for Pope who phoned them nightly

Gaza’s Christians ‘heartbroken’ for Pope who phoned them nightly
Updated 22 April 2025
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Gaza’s Christians ‘heartbroken’ for Pope who phoned them nightly

Gaza’s Christians ‘heartbroken’ for Pope who phoned them nightly

CAIRO/BEIRUT: Members of Gaza’s tiny Christian community said they were “heartbroken” on Monday at the death of Pope Francis, who campaigned for peace for the devastated enclave and spoke to them on the phone every evening throughout the war.
Across the wider Middle East, Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, praised Francis’ constant engagement with them as a source of solace at a time when their communities faced wars, disasters, hardship and persecution.
“We lost a saint who taught us every day how to be brave, how to keep patient and stay strong. We lost a man who fought every day in every direction to protect this small herd of his,” George Antone, 44, head of the emergency committee at the Holy Family Church in Gaza, told Reuters.
Francis called the church hours after the war in Gaza began in October 2023, Antone said, the start of what the Vatican News Service would describe as a nightly routine throughout the war. He would make sure to speak not only to the priest but to everyone else in the room, Antone said.
“We are heartbroken because of the death of Pope Francis, but we know that he is leaving behind a church that cares for us and that knows us by name — every single one of us,” Antone said, referring to the Christians of Gaza who number in the hundreds.
“He used to tell each one: I am with you, don’t be afraid.”
Francis phoned a final time on Saturday night, the pastor of the Holy Family parish, Rev. Gabriel Romanelli, told the Vatican News Service.
“He said he was praying for us, he blessed us, and he thanked us for our prayers,” Romanelli said.
The next day, in his last public statement on Easter, Francis appealed for peace in Gaza, telling the warring parties to “call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace.”

’PEACE IN THIS LAND’
At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, on the site where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected, the superior of the Latin community, Father Stephane Milovitch, said Francis had stood for peace.
“We wish that peace will finally come very soon in this land and we wish the next pope will be able to help to have peace in Jerusalem and in all the world,” he said.
In Lebanon, where a war between Israel and Hezbollah caused widespread casualties and extensive damage last year, sending millions from their homes, members of the Catholic Maronite community spoke of Francis’ frequent mentions of their plight.
“He’s a saint for us because he carried Lebanon and the Middle East in his heart, especially in the last period of war,” said a priest in the southern Lebanese town of Rmeish, which was badly damaged during Israel’s military campaign last year.
“We always felt he was very involved and he mobilized all the Catholic institutions and funds to help Lebanon throughout the crises that we went through,” said Marie-Jo Dib, who works at a social foundation in Lebanon.
“He was a rebel and I really pray that the next pope will be like him,” she added.
Francis made repeated trips to the Middle East, including to Iraq in 2021 where he learned that two suicide bombers had attempted to assassinate him in Mosul, a once cosmopolitan city where the Daesh militant group proclaimed a caliphate from 2014-17.
He visited the ruins of four destroyed churches there and launched an appeal for peace.
In Syria, Archbishop Antiba Nicolas said he was holding mass at the historic Damascus Zaitoun church when he was handed a slip of paper with the news.
“He used to say ‘dearest Syria’ every time he spoke of Syria. He called on all international organizations to support Syria, the Christian presence and the church in Syria during the crisis in the past years,” Nicolas said.