THE United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says Israeli settler violence against Palestinians has surged dramatically this year, with over 220 injuries recorded, averaging 44 per month, marking the highest monthly attack rate observed in 20 years.
According to the OCHA’s latest weekly report on the humanitarian situation in the West Bank, the entire Palestinian Bedouin community of Maghayer ad Deir, about 120 people, was forcibly displaced after Israeli settlers established a fourth unauthorised outpost near their village.
Meanwhile, Israeli movement restrictions across the Salfit governorate have severely limited access to essential services – including healthcare, education, and livelihoods – for nearly 90,000 Palestinians.
Since the start of 2025, punitive demolitions by Israeli forces have displaced 80 people.
In May alone, Israeli demolitions destroyed 50 homes in Nur Shams refugee camp, while Tulkarm camp residents received only three hours’ notice to evacuate 20 buildings.
According to United Nations relief agency UNRWA, over 33,000 Palestinians remain displaced, unable to return to their homes in Jenin, Nur Shams, and Tulkarm refugee camps.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers abducted and tortured two Palestinian-American brothers from Burqa village near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestine’s official WAFA news agency.
Identified as Ghassan and Imad Jaber, the brothers were attacked while visiting relatives in a village near Ramallah. After being held captive, they were eventually released and evacuated to a nearby hospital for medical treatment.
The regime has escalated its West Bank violence since October 7th, 2023, when it launched its genocide in Gaza. Since then, Israeli forces and settlers have killed about 1,000 Palestinians in the occupied territory.
Thousands of Palestinians have left their homes in Jenin and the nearby city of Tulkarm in the northern West in recent months. Palestinians fear Gaza-style clearance as Israel squeezes Jenin and other refugee camps across the occupied region.
Last July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared that Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal, and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Scores of extremist Jewish settlers desecrated the Al Aqsa Mosque in Occupied Jerusalem on Monday morning and later in the afternoon to mark the Shavuot holiday, amid tight restrictions on the entry of Muslim worshippers to the holy site.
According to al-Qastal News, at least 985 settlers entered the Mosque through the Maghariba Gate and provocatively toured its courtyards under police protection.
During their tours at the Islamic holy site, the settlers received lectures from rabbis about the alleged Temple Mount and a number of them provocatively performed Talmudic prayers in the eastern area of the Mosque.
Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation police imposed movement and entry restrictions on Muslim worshippers at the Aqsa Mosque’s entrances and gates and prevented many of them from entering the holy site.
The Israeli Security Cabinet ‘secretly’ approved the construction of 22 new settlements, while closed-door discussions have taken place in recent weeks to strengthen Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank and divide it into cantons, in response to some countries’ intention to recognise a Palestinian state.
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, which reported the news yesterday, did not specify the date of the cabinet’s approval for the settlement construction decision, but it indicated that the decision includes the re-establishment of the settlements of Homesh and Sa-Nur, which were previously dismantled under the ‘Disengagement Plan’ from the Gaza Strip.
The newspaper added that the proposal was approved at the initiative of extreme right-wing Army Minister Yisrael Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Settlement activity has clearly escalated in recent years. The organisation Peace Now, citing data from the Higher Planning Council, revealed that ‘in 2022, Israel approved 4,427 building plans throughout the West Bank. This number rose in 2023 to 12,349. After a drop to 9,971 in 2024, the first three months of 2025 saw approval of 14,335 settlement construction plans in the West Bank.’
Since last November, following Donald Trump’s victory in the United States presidential elections, Smotrich announced a draft law that would allow Israeli military courts to impose fines on Palestinians who fail to pay penalties previously issued by those courts.
In a separate move, Knesset member Amit Halevi is pushing for the establishment of an administration under the Ministry of Heritage to manage antiquities in the West Bank.
This comes after a proposed law he initiated – seeking to extend the authority of the Israel Antiquities Authority into the West Bank – faced opposition from professional levels and the authority itself.
On another front, the Hebrew newspaper Israel Hayom reported that Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer recently proposed, in closed discussions, to enhance Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank.
The newspaper stated last Tuesday that Dermer raised this idea in internal government discussions as a response to intentions by some Western nations, particularly France, to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state.
Dermer’s office has declined to comment on the report.
Simultaneously, the head of the Yesha Council (the settlers council) Yisrael Gantz, presented to officials in Donald Trump’s administration the idea of broadly applying Israeli law to parts of the West Bank.
During a series of meetings with influential figures in the White House, and in the Departments of State and Defence, Gantz warned of the consequences of recognising a Palestinian state.
According to the proposal prepared by the Yesha Council, Israeli law would be applied to 65% of the occupied West Bank, while Palestinians would reside in 20 independent cantons, so they could not form a unified national entity.
Gantz noted that during the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ military operation on October 7th, 2023, around 6,000 ‘armed fighters infiltrated Israel from the Gaza Strip’ – referring to the Palestinian resistance – while approximately 40,000 armed members affiliated with the Palestinian Authority are present in the West Bank.
The settlers’ leader explained to the Trump administration officials that the border between Israel and Gaza is only 20 kilometres long, while the Green Line (the boundary between the West Bank and Israel) extends 350 kilometres.
He added that US approval of this step is the only way to prevent the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
Gantz also linked French President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to push for a wave of unilateral international recognition of a Palestinian state with the ‘urgent need’ to apply Israeli sovereignty. He claimed, ‘Macron is pushing Israel toward this step.’
The same newspaper reported that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar sent a similar message to his counterparts in Britain, France, and other countries, warning that any actions against Israel would be met with Israeli measures such as ‘extending sovereignty’ to West Bank settlements and parts of the Jordan Valley.
According to the report, Sa’ar said: ‘Any unilateral moves against Israel will be met with unilateral steps from Israel.’
These warnings come ahead of the French-Saudi summit scheduled to be held in New York next month, where French President Macron is expected to work on promoting coordinated recognition of a Palestinian state.
Tensions have escalated between Israel and several Western countries after Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney threatened to take ‘concrete measures’ against Israel if it does not halt its war on the Gaza Strip and lift restrictions on humanitarian aid.
A joint statement from the three countries, published by the British government last Monday, stated: ‘The Israeli government’s prevention of the entry of essential humanitarian aid to the civilian population is unacceptable and violates international humanitarian law.’
The joint statement also used certain terms for the first time, criticising ‘the hateful language recently used by Israeli government members, threatening that civilians would begin relocating from Gaza due to despair over its destruction.’
It emphasised that permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law.
Prior to the joint French-British-Canadian announcement – which Germany did not join – seven European countries: Malta, Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia, Spain, Norway, and Luxembourg, issued a joint statement on May 17 calling on Israel to end the genocide in Gaza and stop preventing the entry of aid into the Strip, affirming that they ‘will not remain silent in the face of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding before our eyes in Gaza.’
Israeli so-called pastoral or agricultural settlement in the occupied West Bank has seen a dramatic surge, with the number of settler farms or kibbutzim rising from zero in 2021 to 133 in 2025, according to data from the Israeli research group Kerem Navot (referred to in some reports as Tamrur).
These settlement outposts are often inhabited by extremist settlers from the far-right group known as ‘Hilltop Youth.’ They raise sheep and cattle and use the farms to seize vast areas of agricultural and mountainous land in the West Bank.
The goal is to reinforce settlement expansion and block the possibility of a future Palestinian state – efforts supported by Israel’s political and military establishment.
These settler farms have become a cornerstone of Israel’s broader settlement strategy under the current right-wing government. Alongside the expansion of existing settlements and the construction of new ones, they serve to tighten Israeli control over Area C, which comprises 60% of the West Bank, and to restrict Palestinian development and presence there.
