Surge in Violence by West Bank Settlers Draws Ire of Israel’s Allies
A surge in Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is raising the ire of some in the international community as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government officially expands its hold on the occupied territory by claiming more land and quietly assists extremists with tacit military support, according to rights activists.
The European Union on Monday sanctioned five Israeli settlers, two outposts and an extremist group that were “responsible for serious and systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank,” the European Council, the E.U. body that represents the heads of the member governments, said in a statement. The United States last week also imposed sanctions on Israelis and entities in the West Bank that the State Department said had incited violence against Palestinians or encroached on Palestinian land.
Peace Now, an Israeli organization that tracks Jewish settlements, responded to the European sanctions by accusing the Israeli government of failing to enforce its own laws and of being complicit in the settler violence.
The West Bank is home to about 2.7 million Palestinians and more than 500,000 settlers. Israel seized control of the territory from Jordan in 1967 during a war with three Arab states, and Israelis have since settled there with both tacit and explicit government approval, though the international community largely considers settlements illegal, and many outposts also violate Israeli law. Settlers are governed by Israeli civil law while their Palestinian neighbors are subject to Israeli military law.
Palestinians have long argued that the settlements are a creeping annexation that turns land needed for any future independent Palestinian state into an unmanageable patchwork. But the war with Hamas in Gaza has given Israel’s right-wing government, intent on West Bank expansion, a way to bolster settlers who oppose the creation of a Palestinian state under the guise of providing added security amid heightened tensions, some rights groups say.
The army has shut down “so many roads” in the West Bank that thousands of acres of land have become off limits to Palestinians, Hagit Ofran of Peace Now’s “Settlement Watch” project said in a phone interview. The military erects gates in the name of security, but the result is that it shuts off Palestinians’ access to large areas they rely on, she added, and that ultimately advances settlers’ aims.
Notably, there are also more Israeli troops stationed in the area than before the war. “In every settlement, you now have reserve soldiers who are settlers and who take extremist measures against Palestinians,” Ms. Ofran said. “Settler soldiers are actually an armed militia.”
Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, is a settler himself and responsible for extremist policies meant to expand Israel’s hold over the West Bank. Mr. Smotrich is taking away much of the military’s authority there and instead putting settlers in charge of civil administration, effectively taking control, Ms. Ofran noted. In a secretly recorded speech on June 9, Mr. Smotrich outlined this carefully orchestrated program to take authority over the West Bank out of the hands of the Israeli military and turn it over to civilians working for him while deflecting international scrutiny.
From the perspective of some in the Israeli military, settler violence is a threat to Israel’s security. Retired Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, former chief of Israel’s Central Command, which oversees the West Bank, rebuked the Israeli government’s policies in the area and condemned the rising tide of “nationalist crime” in his departure speech last week.
But as the military’s presence in the West Bank has increased since Oct. 7, so have violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops meant to maintain order there, further escalating tensions in the already fraught region.
Israeli forces shot a man dead in the West Bank on Tuesday during clashes in Al Bireh, according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel’s military said on social media on Tuesday that it was chasing people who fired on a car with Israeli civilians inside in Ramin, a village in the northeast of the West Bank, adding that the civilians had been lightly injured in the attack and had been evacuated for treatment. It gave no further details.
Israeli forces have killed more than 530 West Bank Palestinians since the war in Gaza began, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which tracks West Bank violence on a weekly basis. In its latest update, the agency said that the Israeli military on July 9 killed a 13-year old Palestinian boy in Deir Abu Mash’al village near Ramallah and injured three other boys.
The Israeli military, in response to a query about the incident, said in a statement that since Oct. 7, there had been “a significant increase” in attempted terrorist attacks in the West Bank and nearby area — more than 2,000 in total — and that it is “actively conducting operations” to prevent terrorism. The military confirmed the U.N. report of violence on July 9, but not a death or the involvement of any children in the confrontation, stating that “masked terrorists hurled rocks” at Israeli military vehicles and a “soldier in the area responded with live fire, hitting one of the terrorists.”
Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting.
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