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HRW: Displacement accelerates
Human Rights Watch said escalating attacks by Israeli settlers are putting dozens of Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank at risk of “erasure,” and it linked the trend to the rapid expansion of Israeli settlements illegal under international law.
“Dozens of Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank are at risk of erasure”
HRW said it investigated settler attacks in seven Palestinian West Bank communities in April and May, including Al-Mughayyir, Mikhmas and Taybeh in Ramallah governorate; Jalud and Qaryut in Nablus governorate; and Khirbet Hamsa and Muarrajat East in the Jordan Valley.
HRW said UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs research found more Palestinians were forcibly displaced by settler attacks, demolitions and evictions in the first four months of this year than in the whole of 2025, and it cited OCHA figures of 107 communities comprising 5,900 Palestinians displaced since January 2023.
HRW also said Israeli military expelled another 32,000 Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank since January 2025, “essentially emptying the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps,” while Sarah Sanbar, HRW’s acting Israel and Palestine researcher, said, “Settlers shoot, attack, and expel Palestinians from their land, and the state provides the weapons, the legal cover, and the budget to do it.”
Victims seek justice
In occupied East Jerusalem, Moira Jilani told Al Jazeera that she still waits for the footsteps of her husband Ziad to return home to Shu’fat, and she recalled his last words about going to the beach after Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Al Jazeera described how, on June 11, 2010, Ziad Jilani was driving through Wadi al-Joz when a rock struck his windshield, he was lightly injuring two border police officers, and a border police officer then opened fire and shot him in the back and “two more times in the head at close range.”
Moira said the case against Maxim Vinogradov and his commanding officer was closed due to a lack of evidence and that “Neither of them has faced trial,” while she also said, “[Israel] had everybody brainwashed to think that Palestinians were terrorists.”
In the same Al Jazeera report, Hussein Abu Khdeir described his son Mohammed’s killing on the night of July 1, 2014, when three Israeli men circled the neighbourhood between Shu’fat and Beit Hanina looking for a child to abduct, and he said Mohammed “loved everybody.”
UN warns; US rejects annexation
While HRW warned of a coercive environment created by attacks and lack of state protection, the UN human rights office told Anadolu in Geneva that violence by Israeli occupation forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank is worsening alongside a widening push by Israel towards annexation.
“The violence by Israeli settlers and forces and widening annexation of the occupied Palestinian West Bank are only getting worse”
Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said, “The violence by Israeli settlers and forces and widening annexation of the occupied Palestinian West Bank are only getting worse,” and he added, “These attacks must stop.”
In parallel, an Al-Khaleej Newspaper report said Washington confirmed it does not support Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank, quoting a State Department spokesperson: “The United States does not support Israel’s annexation of the West Bank.”
The same Al-Khaleej Newspaper account tied stability in the West Bank to Israel’s security and to peace, quoting the spokesperson as saying, “Stability in the West Bank maintains Israel's security and aligns with the Trump administration's goal of achieving peace in the region.”