West Bank settler violence is no longer the exception

For years, the international community has been encouraged to view attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank as isolated incidents carried out by a handful of extremists. That narrative is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. The frequency, organization and apparent impunity surrounding these attacks suggest a far more troubling reality: settler violence has become an integral feature of the occupation rather than an unfortunate by-product of it.
What unfolds daily across the West Bank is not merely a series of criminal acts committed by radical individuals. The situation reflects an environment in which violence against Palestinians is too often tolerated, insufficiently deterred and rarely punished. When those entrusted with enforcing the law fail to act, impunity inevitably flourishes.
Palestinian villages have repeatedly been subjected to arson attacks, shootings, assaults, the destruction of olive groves, vandalism of homes, seizure of agricultural land and intimidation campaigns designed to make ordinary life unbearable. Families are forced to watch as generations of work disappear overnight. Farmers are attacked while harvesting their olive trees. Homes are burned. Livestock is stolen or killed. Vehicles are torched. Entire communities live under the constant fear that the next attack could come at any moment.
These are not random acts of vandalism. They have a cumulative effect: fear, displacement and the gradual erosion of the Palestinian presence on the land.
Recent events illustrate the pattern. Reuters last week documented how Israeli settlers occupied a partially built Palestinian home in the village of Jalud. Despite appeals by the Palestinian owner, Israeli authorities failed to remove the settlers. The incident occurred against the backdrop of a sharp increase in settler attacks documented by the UN.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has documented hundreds of similar incidents involving assaults, arson, destruction of property, attacks on water infrastructure and forced displacement. Entire Palestinian communities have abandoned their homes because repeated attacks made daily life impossible. In one case, the herding community of Khirbet Yanun was displaced following sustained settler violence and intimidation.
The numbers are alarming. According to the UN, 2025 witnessed the highest level of documented settler violence since systematic monitoring began nearly two decades ago. Hundreds of Palestinians were injured, thousands were displaced and attacks became an almost daily occurrence across large parts of the West Bank.
Even more troubling are the repeated allegations that Israeli security forces have, in some cases, failed to intervene effectively or been present during attacks. A UN Commission of Inquiry published last month concluded that Israeli authorities had facilitated an environment of impunity and that security forces had at times accompanied or protected settlers during attacks. Israel has rejected these findings but the report has intensified international concern over the relationship between state institutions and settler violence. 

What unfolds daily across the West Bank is not merely a series of criminal acts committed by radical individuals.

Hani Hazaimeh

This is where responsibility extends beyond the individual settler.
The Israeli government cannot indefinitely distance itself from the actions of groups that operate openly, repeatedly and often in the presence of state authorities. When violence becomes predictable and accountability remains rare, questions inevitably arise about political responsibility.
Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, settlement expansion has accelerated, while political support for the settler movement has become increasingly explicit. Members of the governing coalition have openly advocated expanding settlements and strengthening Israel’s hold over the West Bank. In such an environment, extremist settlers may reasonably conclude that the political climate is on their side.
The consequences are devastating.
Settler violence is not simply about today’s victims. It is about tomorrow’s geography. Every family forced from its home, every olive grove burned, every village isolated by intimidation contributes to changing realities on the ground. Fear becomes an instrument of demographic change.
This strategy has another purpose: convincing Palestinians that remaining on their own land is no longer worth the cost. It is coercion through exhaustion rather than formal expulsion.
Such tactics should concern anyone who believes in international law, regardless of political affiliation. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its civilian population into occupied territory. Equally important, it imposes obligations to protect civilians living under occupation. Those obligations lose meaning if violence by civilians is tolerated or ignored.
No democracy can credibly claim to uphold the rule of law while allowing one group to operate above it. Equal justice cannot exist where one community lives under constant fear while perpetrators expect little or no accountability.
The international community has condemned settler violence repeatedly. Yet condemnation alone has failed to change realities on the ground. Statements of concern have not protected Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest. Diplomatic expressions of alarm have not prevented homes from being burned or communities from being displaced.
Words without consequences become little more than ritual.
The tragedy of the West Bank is not only that violence continues. It is that it has become normalized. When attacks occur so frequently that they cease to shock the international conscience, impunity becomes institutionalized.
Occupations cannot be sustained indefinitely through force, intimidation or fear. Lasting security is never built on the dispossession of others. The cycle of settler violence, impunity and displacement must end — not only because Palestinians deserve protection but because justice remains the indispensable foundation of any durable peace.

• Hani Hazaimeh is a senior editor based in Amman.
X: @hanihazaimeh