While international attention has been turned toward Gaza, violence against Palestinians has increased in the West Bank too. Israeli settler attacks have become more frequent.
Settlers are Israeli citizens who live on Palestinian land. In most cases, this happens because Palestinians are prevented from accessing their land and are physically attacked by settlers. In a third of cases, Palestinian property is damaged by settlers. These findings come from a UN report published in September 2023 that showed a years-long rise in settler violence against Palestinians. Because of these numbers, the UN has noted that “settler-driven displacement did not start with Hamas’s deadly attack”.
“Settlers attacked us, destroying our homes, water tanks, solar panels and cars,” Abu Khaled, 43, told the UN after being displaced on 28 October. “I felt the presence of death so tangibly as if I saw it with my own eyes … I made the hardest decision in my life: to leave Zanuta and leave everything behind, as memories. I did this to protect my children.” Those who remain are not safe. “They prevent us from grazing our sheep,” Mohamad Abu Seif, 90, said. He has lived with his family in Ein Shibli, a herding community, for over 40 years. They remain vulnerable to threats and harassment by settlers.
The Israeli government routinely acknowledges these colonies as part of the Israeli state despite the fact that they are illegal under international law. For decades, the United States has publicly condemned settlements while continuing to provide billions of dollars to Israel. But this longstanding policy was reversed by the Trump administration in November 2019 when it stated that it didn’t consider settlements to be a violation of international law “per se”. In fact, article 49 of the fourth Geneva convention prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
Biden’s administration had been relatively quiet on this point until tensions with Israel rose in February and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, stated: “New settlements are counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace.” Blinken, who was responding to a reporter’s question about Israeli plans to build 3,300 new homes in West Bank settlements, added: “They’re also inconsistent with international law. Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion and in our judgment this only weakens, it doesn’t strengthen, Israel’s security.” Settlements have been one of the main sticking points in peace negotiations, since the rapid growth of these outposts could in effect eliminate hopes for a Palestinian state. About 40% of the West Bank is currently under the control of settlements.
The numbers displayed here are incomplete. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which collects this data, notes that “cases of harassment, trespass, and intimidation are not included in these statistics when they do not result in damage or casualties, although they too increase the pressure on Palestinians to leave”.
Settler violence is unlikely to slow down. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, leads a coalition government that includes several religious Zionist parties that support further annexation of the West Bank. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has found that “as a rule, the military prefers to remove Palestinians from their own farmland or pastureland rather than confront settlers”. This has also been the case in recent months, when Israeli forces have accompanied or supported settler attacks in almost half of all incidents, according to the UN. In over a third of the incidents reported since October, settlers threatened Palestinians with firearms, including by opening fire.
The thousands of Palestinians who have been forced from their homes have little recourse to justice. In four out of every five cases, Israeli police failed in the investigation of Israelis who harmed Palestinians and their property. This finding comes from Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group that has investigated the way Israeli law enforcement treats these settler attacks. It found that between 2005 and 2021, just 3% of ideologically motivated cases resulted in a conviction.
Demolition is also a key part of settlement. Israeli authorities regularly destroy and confiscate Palestinian-owned property. They also prohibit construction by Palestinians while issuing permits to Israelis. About 24,300 housing units for Israeli settlements in the West Bank were advanced last year. In March 2024, after plans to build a further 3,476 settler homes were announced, the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, condemned the move, stating that the constructions “fly in the face of international law”.
