Israeli forces, settlers carried out nearly 24,000 attacks in West Bank in 2025, says monitor group

An anti-settlement monitoring group says Israeli forces and illegal settlers conducted 23,827 assaults on Palestinians and their properties across the occupied West Bank in 2025, representing a significant rise in the number of violations recorded within a single year.

Head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Muayyad Shaaban, said on Monday that the attacks included 1,382 assaults targeting lands and agricultural areas, 16,664 attacks against individuals, and 5,398 assaults on properties.

Shaaban highlighted that the Israeli army conducted 18,384 assaults, while settlers executed 4,723, and there were 720 attacks carried out collaboratively by both parties.

He characterized 2025 as a year laden with blood, maps, and resolutions, emphasizing that Israel did not restrict itself to merely expanding colonial outposts but sought to expand the fundamental concept of control.

“Domination was no longer restricted to land as a tangible area, but also involved reinterpreting Palestinian geography, symbolism, and existence itself,” Shaaban said.

He stated that this report records a year of violations that were not conducted in secrecy, but instead executed openly as part of the political process, under the aegis of a regime that perceives the land as spoils, the law as an instrument, and force as a replacement for legitimacy.

UN chief denounces escalating Israeli settler violence in occupied West Bank

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounces escalating Israeli settler violence against Palestinian civilians and their property in the occupied West Bank.

Shaaban clarified that the report does not simply provide a numerical summary of the violations, but rather situates these events within their political and moral framework, as a result of an extensive colonial initiative aimed at the land, the populace, and collective memory concurrently.

“When Palestinian geography is reduced to isolated and besieged enclaves, and Palestinians are pushed out of their land, the occupation becomes a permanent condition, not a temporary measure,” he said.

After the launch of Israel's genocidal war in Gaza on October 7, 2023, Israeli authorities examined around 355 master plans for the development of 37,415 settlement units across 38,551 dunams (39 square kilometers) of Palestinian land. Among these, approval has been granted for 18,801 units, while the remaining 18,614 are still undergoing review.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

The international community views the settlements as illegal under international law and the Geneva Conventions due to their construction on occupied territories.

The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in several resolutions.

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of historical Palestine illegal. The ICJ demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds.

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