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Displacement in the West Bank
Human Rights Watch said dozens of Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank are at risk of erasure due to escalating attacks by Israeli settlers and 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 accused Israeli authorities of arming, funding and granting impunity to settlers, and said it investigated settler attacks in seven Palestinian West Bank communities in April and May including Al-Mughayyir, Mikhmas and Taybeh in Ramallah governorate, and Jalud and Qaryut in Nablus governorate.
HRW said UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) 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.
HRW reported that OCHA found 107 communities comprising 5,900 Palestinians had been completely or partially displaced as a result of settler violence since January 2023, and said the 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.
Acting Israel and Palestine researcher Sarah Sanbar 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," linking the violence to state enabling.
Families seek justice
In occupied East Jerusalem, Moira Jilani said she still waits to hear the footsteps of her husband Ziad up the stairs of their home in Shu’fat, and she told Al Jazeera that Ziad’s last words were, "When I come back, I’ll just honk, and you come on down," before he was killed.
Al Jazeera described how, on June 11, 2010, Ziad Jilani was driving his pick-up truck home through Wadi al-Joz when a border police officer opened fire, and it said an investigation by Israeli rights lawyers claimed that less than two weeks earlier the officer, Maxim Vinogradov, had posted online about his desire to kill Arabs.
Al Jazeera also said a case against Vinogradov and his commanding officer was closed due to a lack of evidence, and that neither of them has faced trial.
Moira said she and her daughters have had to live with fallout after Ziad was branded a "terrorist," and she told Al Jazeera, "[Israel] had everybody brainwashed to think that Palestinians were terrorists."
The same Al Jazeera report tied the struggle for justice to the ongoing consequences of false accusations and Israeli attacks, including the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who Hussein Abu Khdeir said "loved everybody".
Violence and annexation pressure
Anadolu reported that HRW said Israeli occupier attacks displaced Palestinians from 107 West Bank communities since January 2023, and it said the figure was based on data from OCHA documenting an average of 6.6 occupier attacks per day in 2026 resulting in casualties, property damage or both.
“"maximum land and minimum Palestinians"”
Anadolu said HRW warned that occupier violence escalated in March and April and involved killings including of children, assaults, sexual violence, arbitrary detention, arson, property destruction, and theft, while it cited HRW’s view that the Israeli government and settlers share the goal of "maximum land and minimum Palestinians."
The UN human rights office warned that violence by Israeli occupiers and forces in the occupied West Bank is worsening alongside a widening push by Israel towards annexation, with Thameen Al-Kheetan telling Anadolu in Geneva, "The violence by Israeli settlers and forces and widening annexation of the occupied Palestinian West Bank are only getting worse."
Al-Kheetan said Israel, as the occupying power, has a responsibility to protect Palestinians and investigate attacks, and he urged the international community to act, saying, "The international community must take action, using all means possible," to ensure respect for the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
In parallel, Al-Khaleej Newspaper reported that the United States confirmed it does not support Israel’s plan to annex the West Bank, quoting a State Department spokesperson: "The United States does not support Israel’s annexation of the West Bank."