West Bank terror wave is sanctioned Israeli policy

With all eyes focused on the political impasse and humanitarian debacle in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are being subjected to horrific security, economic and political retributions by radical Jewish settlers on the one hand and the occupation authorities on the other. Both are aiming to achieve one thing: sever the connection between Palestinians and their land, with the final objective of displacing the majority.

This sinister and shared goal between the settlers and the occupation is not a secret. Far-right ministers in the Israeli government have openly called for arming the settlers, denying Palestinians access to their lands, strangling the West Bank economy, dismantling the Palestinian Authority, annexing the Jordan Valley, and legalizing tens of so-called illegal settlement outposts. Since Oct. 7, 2023, settler terrorism incidents against Palestinians have spiked, with a record 260-plus recorded last month alone.

According to the Israeli media and human rights organizations, more than 1,000 attacks against Palestinians by Jewish settlers were recorded between January and August this year. Reports say that settler attacks average about seven per day in 2025, more than double the rate from two years ago. According to UN figures, more than 3,200 Palestinians have been displaced since Oct. 7.

These attacks include arson, such as burning mosques and churches, vandalism of homes and farms, assaults on civilians, including during olive harvests, and violent rampages in towns like Huwara. The attacks have resulted in at least 178 Palestinian fatalities this year from settler and military violence combined, with thousands injured, including children.

In almost all cases, Israeli occupation soldiers stood by and did not intervene as settlers attacked Palestinians

Osama Al-Sharif

In almost all cases, Israeli occupation soldiers stood by and did not intervene as settlers attacked Palestinians. In fact, in many cases, they sided with the attackers by arresting victims and ordering Palestinians to clear the orchards or lands that settlers claimed as their own. And even when settlers were caught red-handed killing unarmed Palestinians, there were no trials or even arrests of the culprits.

Since the war on Gaza started, the Israeli occupation authorities have set up more than 1,000 checkpoints and barricades, effectively dissecting the West Bank and preventing Palestinians from reaching schools, universities and markets. These closures are almost always arbitrary, with no justifications whatsoever, leaving thousands of Palestinians stranded at checkpoints for hours and sometimes days.

Settler terrorism in the West Bank has become so rife that Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally broke their silence in the last week and called for such attacks to be stopped, with Netanyahu claiming that Israel is “a nation of laws.” But they did so only after settlers clashed with the Israeli army and police. Netanyahu called the extremists “a minority that goes into Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and does not represent the large community of law-abiding, loyal settlers.”

But the reality is that, under Netanyahu, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have together worked to empower and arm Jewish extremists and protect them from accountability. With most of these attacks being documented, including several instances of Palestinian Americans being killed, the US reacted cautiously last week. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that “certainly there’s some concern about events in the West Bank spilling over and creating an effect that could undermine what we're doing in Gaza.”

But the US is complicit in the terror wave against Palestinians. Days after he was inaugurated as president, Donald Trump lifted sanctions imposed by his predecessor on more than 30 Israeli settler groups and entities. Ben-Gvir was allowed to travel to the US despite his racist rhetoric and open calls to kill Palestinians and destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Meanwhile, Smotrich has confiscated millions of dollars owed to the PA and is tightening his grip on Palestinian banks in the West Bank in an effort to bring the local economy down. In a bid to force Palestinians to leave, Israel has warned tens of thousands of West Bankers who also have Jordanian nationality that they could be ordered to leave at any point.

Even without the implications of the war on Gaza, the economic situation in the West Bank was under stress. But since the Oct. 7 attacks, thousands of Palestinians who used to cross the Green Line to work in Israel have been denied access. With Israeli army raids on Palestinian money exchanges, confiscating millions of dollars, there is an acute shortage of cash in the West Bank.

While Israel is expanding its settlement building, it has doubled down on demolishing Palestinian homes and buildings

Osama Al-Sharif

Adding to all this is the fact that Israeli occupation forces have arrested about 20,500 Palestinians in the West Bank in the last two years. More than 1,600 children and nearly 600 women are among those detained. Almost all have been held under so-called administrative detention, with no access to legal aid since they are not facing criminal charges.

Under the Netanyahu government, thousands of new settlement units have been approved and are set to be built on confiscated Palestinian lands in the West Bank. And while Israel is expanding its settlement building, it has doubled down on demolishing Palestinian homes and buildings. By September, Israeli authorities had demolished 1,288 structures over building permits in 2025, nearly five a day, including 138 funded by international aid, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

More than 1,400 Palestinians were displaced as a result and nearly 38,000 were affected through the loss of livelihood or agricultural, water and sanitation infrastructure. This marks a 39 percent increase in demolitions over building permits compared to the same period last year, the organization claimed.

While the Israeli public differs on the future of Gaza and whether it should be annexed, with Palestinians forced to leave, or whether Israel should withdraw from the enclave, there is almost a consensus that no Palestinian state should ever be allowed to see the light of day in the West Bank. Nearly all political parties agree that the Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank will never be dismantled.

This is why the state is looking the other way as settler terror spreads in the West Bank and Palestinians are subjected to collective punishment and inhumane treatment, whether in cities, villages, camps or even fields. But such crimes pale in comparison to what thousands of Palestinian detainees are facing in Israeli prisons, with the revelations that rape and torture have become standard practice.

Israeli war crimes are not restricted to the holocaust in Gaza but extend to the West Bank, where more than 3 million Palestinians are going through a hellish daily reality that aims to uproot them from their native land.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010