settlers

New attacks near Bethlehem and Hebron underscore intensifying Israeli violence in occupied Palestinian territory.

Israeli settlers have launched two major arson attacks on Palestinian villages near Bethlehem and Hebron amid a wave of rising violence by Israel in the occupied West Bank.

Dozens of settlers rampaged through the village of al-Jaba, located 10km (six miles) southwest of Bethlehem, on Monday, torching three Palestinian homes, one shack and three vehicles, according to Dhyab Masha‘la, the head of the local council.

Masha‘la told Palestinian news agency Wafa that the attackers caused extensive damage to the village, but that locals had managed to extinguish the flames. No casualties were reported.

Earlier on Monday, Wafa said settlers set fire to a home and two vehicles, and physically assaulted several civilians in Sa’ir town, northeast of Hebron, under the protection of Israeli forces.

The Israeli settlers beat the Palestinians with batons and sharp instruments, resulting in injuries to a number of women, with Israeli forces blocking fire engines and ambulances from reaching the scene, the agency reported.

Violence in the West Bank has broken new records this year, with settlers carrying out almost-daily attacks on Palestinians that have involved killings, beatings and the destruction of property, often under the protection of the Israeli military.

Last wek, settlers set a mosque ablaze in the village of Deir Istiya in the north of the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission says that Israeli forces and settlers carried out 2,350 attacks across the West Bank last month alone in an “ongoing cycle of terror”, which has been taking place in the shadow of the war in Gaza.

The violence is rarely prosecuted.

Referring to the attack on al-Jaba, an Israeli military spokesperson said security forces were “searching for those involved” after being deployed to the village following reports of “dozens of Israeli citizens” torching and vandalising houses and vehicles.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has overseen the rapid expansion of settlements, denounced Monday’s attack, calling the assailants a “small, extremist group” and signalling that he would convene cabinet ministers to address the problem.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said on X that the government would “not tolerate the attempts of a small group of violent and criminal anarchists who break the law to take the law into their own hands and tarnish the settler community”.

But his statement backed the continued expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

The government, Katz said, would “continue to develop and foster the settlement enterprise throughout Judea and Samaria”.

Last year, the International Court of Justice – the top United Nations tribunal – ruled that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is illegal and called for removing Israeli settlements from the territory.

Settler violence has spiked as members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government push to formally annex the area, which has long operated under a system of apartheid, according to leading rights groups.

The United Nations’ human rights office warned in July that the settler violence was being carried out “with the acquiescence, support, and in some cases participation, of Israeli security forces”.

Last week, in a rare public rebuke, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and army chief Eyal Zamir condemned the burgeoning settler attacks.

Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian villagers, activists, and journalists, including Reuters reporter Raneen Sawafta, near Nablus. The assault is the latest in a surge of settler violence across the occupied West Bank during the olive harvesting season, with over 760 attacks recorded in October.

‘Cycle of terror’ spikes as Higher Planning Council set to advance plans to build 1,985 new settlement units in occupied West Bank.

Israeli forces and settlers have carried out 2,350 attacks across the occupied West Bank last month in an “ongoing cycle of terror”, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC).

CRRC head Mu’ayyad Sha’ban said on Wednesday that Israeli forces carried out 1,584 attacks – including direct physical attacks, the demolition of homes and the uprooting of olive trees – with most of the violence focused on the governorates of Ramallah (542), Nablus (412) and Hebron (401).

The research, compiled in a CRRC monthly report titled Occupation Violations and Colonial Expansion Measures, also noted 766 attacks by settlers. The commission said they are expanding settlements, which are illegal under international law, as part of what it called an “organised strategy that aims to displace the land’s indigenous people and enforce a fully racist colonial regime”.

The report said settler attacks reached a new peak with most targeting the Ramallah governorate (195), Nablus (179) and Hebron (126). Olive pickers received the brunt of attacks, according to the report, which said they were the victims of “state terror” that had been “orchestrated in the dark backrooms of the occupation government”.

It described instances of Israeli “vandalism and theft” carried out in cahoots with Israeli soldiers that have seen the “uprooting, destruction and poisoning” of 1,200 olive trees in Hebron, Ramallah, Tubas, Qalqilya, Nablus and Bethlehem. During the violence, settlers have tried to establish seven new outposts on Palestinian land since October in the governorates of Hebron and Nablus.

For decades, the Israeli military has uprooted olive trees, an important Palestinian cultural symbol, across the West Bank as part of efforts by successive Israeli governments to seize Palestinian land and forcibly displace residents.

The spike in Israeli violence comes amid expectations that Israel’s Higher Planning Council (HPC), part of the Israeli army’s Civil Administration overseeing the occupied West Bank, will meet to discuss the construction of 1,985 new settlement units in the West Bank on Wednesday.

The left-wing Israeli movement Peace Now said 1,288 of the units would be rolled out in two isolated settlements in the northern West Bank, namely Avnei Hefetz and Einav Plan.

It said the HPC had been holding weekly meetings since November last year to advance housing projects in the settlements, thus normalising and accelerating construction on land taken from Palestinians.

Since the beginning of 2025, the HPC has pushed forward a record 28,195 housing units, Peace Now said.

In August, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich drew international condemnation after saying plans to build thousands of homes as part of the proposed E1 settlement scheme in the West Bank “buries the idea of a Palestinian state”.

The E1 project, shelved for years amid opposition from the United States and European allies, would connect occupied East Jerusalem with the existing illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim.

The Israeli far right’s push to annex the West Bank would essentially end the possibility of implementing a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as outlined in numerous United Nations resolutions.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration has been adamant that it won’t allow Israel to annex the occupied territory.  US Vice President JD Vance, while visiting Israel recently, said Trump would oppose Israeli annexation of the West Bank and it would not happen. Vance said as he left Israel, “If it was a political stunt, it is a very stupid one, and I personally take some insult to it.”

But the US has done nothing to rein in Israel’s assaults and crackdowns on Palestinians in the West Bank as it trumpets its Gaza ceasefire efforts.