Settler violence rises in West Bank as settlements expand

On 3 February 2026, Peace Now counted a surge of settlement activity and expulsions across the West Bank in 2025. That expansion ran alongside a steep rise in settler attacks, with Palestinian communities from Maghayyir ad Deir to the hills around Nablus facing pressure from armed civilians, new outposts and repeated military raids.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs counted 555 Palestinian fatalities in the West Bank between 1 January 2024 and 31 January 2025, including 102 children. In the same period, OCHA recorded 27 Israeli fatalities, including 3 children and 15 members of Israeli forces, and 3,570 Palestinian injuries. OCHA’s settler-related violence dashboard tracks incidents in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, with data going back to January 2017.

In Maghayyir ad Deir, OCHA’s humanitarian update #293 described residents displaced after attacks and intimidation by Israeli settlers and the establishment of a settlement outpost near their homes. A photo caption dated 28 May 2025 showed the community after the displacement.

In August 2025, BBC footage showed masked settlers attacking Palestinians near Nablus, and the broadcaster called the assault “completely unprovoked.” Later that month, after clashes near Tal left four Palestinians and two Israelis dead, settlers set fire to vehicles, agricultural land and two mosques in the occupied West Bank. Far-right elements in the Israeli government encouraged the situation, while the government called its actions legitimate security measures against Palestinian terrorism.

On 14 August 2025, the European Union said the Israeli government continued to deepen the settlement project in the occupied Palestinian territory, advancing plans that endangered Palestinian development and territorial contiguity and undermined prospects for a two-state solution. By 11 September 2025, settlement activity was accelerating and had reached the Security Council. By 15 November 2025, the United Nations had recorded the largest number of monthly settler-violence incidents in 20 years, with more than 260 attacks in October and an olive harvest marred by extreme violence.