LONDON: The morning after Israeli settlers descended on Khirbet Al-Tuba, a small shepherding community in the Masafer Yatta area of the occupied West Bank, the silence was broken only by the crunch of ash underfoot.
Three homes had been reduced to blackened shells and several defaced with Hebrew graffiti. The community’s solar panels — the hamlet’s only source of electricity — lay smashed on the ground. Families who had spent the night fleeing flames were left to survey what remained.
“The settlers started throwing stones. We rushed to protect the women, but they got to my wife and daughter and beat them,” resident Radwan Jundiya told AFP news agency. “Then they started spraying something and setting the room on fire. The pictures tell the whole story.”
Palestinian Radwan Abu Jindeya and his daughter stand in their damaged house, which he says was destroyed by Israeli settlers, in Tuba, Masafer Yatta, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on August 6, 2026. (Reuters/Mussa Qawasma)
The Israeli military said it “strongly condemned” the raid and that it had responded after “homes being set on fire and Palestinians being attacked in the area by Israeli civilians” late on Wednesday.
“Several Palestinians were injured, among them a girl and a woman. Several structures were also burned,” the military said. “The suspects fled before the forces arrived.”
For the roughly 100 Palestinians who live in Khirbet Al-Tuba, the attack was devastating. But it was also increasingly typical.
What unfolded there reflects a broader pattern that humanitarian agencies, rights groups and analysts say is transforming daily life across the West Bank — one measured not only in burned homes and injured civilians, but in rising displacement, expanding settlements and growing doubts over the viability of a future Palestinian state.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 1,380 settler-related incidents resulting in casualties, property damage or both were documented between January and the end of July — an average of 6.6 incidents every day across more than 250 Palestinian communities.
During the same period, more than 2,300 Palestinians were displaced due to settler attacks and related access restrictions. But the impact extends well beyond isolated confrontations.
Across the West Bank, demolitions, settler violence and restrictions on movement have displaced an average of 17 Palestinians every day in 2026 — double the daily average recorded over the previous three years.
Palestinian children watch as Israeli forces oversee the demolition of a building containing shops and flats in Anzah, south of the Palestinian city of Jenin, in the northern Israeli-occupied West Bank on July 27, 2026. (Photo by Mohammad Mansour / AFP)
July matched March as the deadliest month for Palestinians killed in settler attacks since the Gaza war began in October 2023.
Joost Hiltermann, special adviser for the Middle East and North Africa at International Crisis Group, said the deterioration has been gradual but unmistakable.
“First, to be clear, settler expansion and settler violence are longstanding threats to the wellbeing of the Palestinian population of the occupied West Bank,” he told Arab News.
“But these have accelerated with the arrival of the current government in December 2022, and even more so after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
“So we’re talking about an incremental worsening of living conditions in the West Bank, with settler violence coming on top of severe economic pressures and movement restrictions imposed by the military.”
The consequences, he said, extend far beyond individual attacks.
“Settlements, and the infrastructure serving them, are fragmenting the West Bank into near-autonomous enclaves, and settler violence is spreading a reign of terror over the Palestinian population, including in their own homes.”
The geography of the occupation is changing alongside the violence.
Israeli authorities have continued to approve new settlements and expand existing ones, while rights groups say infrastructure projects are increasingly knitting separate settlements together into larger blocs.
This week, Haaretz reported that Israeli forces had signed multiple land seizure orders inside Area A — territory under Palestinian civil and security administration as per the Oslo Accords — to construct a road linking the settlements of Noa and Emek Dotan.
According to Israeli anti-settlement group Kerem Navot, it would mark the first time such seizure orders had been used in Area A to connect settlements.
Heavy machinery that was burned inside a Palestinian quarry after Palestianians say Israeli settlers attacked yesterday, near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, July 27, 2026. (Reuters/Mohammed Torokman)
The latest plans come after the Israeli Security Cabinet approved dozens of additional settlements this year.
Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now says there are currently 141 illegal settlements and 360 outposts in the West Bank, in addition to 15 settlements in East Jerusalem.
Hiltermann believes these developments are directly undermining prospects for a negotiated peace to the decades old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The two-state solution looks increasingly unviable because of the Netanyahu government’s express opposition to it and the international community’s lack of political will to keep it alive,” he said.
“But settlement expansion is the driving force behind the increasing non-viability of a two-state solution: the creation of new ‘facts on the grounds’ is aimed at preempting it.”
The humanitarian consequences ripple across almost every aspect of Palestinian life. According to OCHA, more than 33,000 Palestine refugees displaced from camps in Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams since early 2025 continue to face acute shelter needs.
Health services have also come under growing strain. The World Health Organization documented 53 attacks affecting healthcare in the first half of 2026, including incidents involving ambulance delays, access restrictions, militarized searches and interference with medical services. Nearly half occurred in Nablus governorate.
Israeli settlers loot a Palestinian house on the edge of the village Tal, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, July 31, 2026. (Reuters/Ammar Awad)
Education has likewise been disrupted, including after Israeli forces entered the UN Kalandia Training Center in East Jerusalem twice within a month while classes were underway.
Meanwhile, humanitarian agencies continue providing emergency shelter repairs, psychosocial support and assistance to families displaced by demolitions and settler violence.
UN officials say the pace of violence shows little sign of slowing.
“OCHA warns that settler attacks and operations by Israeli forces continue to affect Palestinians’ homes and livelihoods,” Farhan Haq, the UN deputy spokesperson, said in a briefing on Thursday after the Khirbet Al-Tuba attack.
He said the assault displaced three families, including 14 children, while destroying homes, solar power infrastructure and animal fodder.
“OCHA stresses once again that Palestinians across the Occupied Palestinian Territory must be protected, and perpetrators must be held accountable,” he said.
Israeli settlers approach the Palestinian village of Tal in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, July 31, 2026. (Reuters/Ammar Awad)
The UN Human Rights Office has voiced similar concerns.
“Two years after the ruling by the International Court of Justice that Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory was unlawful and must be ended as rapidly as possible, the violence by settlers and widening annexation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank is only getting worse,” spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement on July 29.
“With attacks by Israeli settlers, and the creation of settlements and outposts hitting an all-time high, third states must act urgently and in unison to halt the continuing killing and dispossession of the Palestinian people, and to bring an end to the Israeli occupation.”
For communities scattered across the hills of Masafer Yatta and elsewhere in the West Bank, the destruction of homes and livelihoods has become more than an isolated security concern.
Humanitarian agencies say it is steadily redrawing the map, leaving many Palestinians wondering not only whether they can remain on their land, but what kind of future that land will ultimately hold.
