UN Says Israeli Settler Attacks in West Bank Surpass 1,000 This Year

The UN said settler attacks in the occupied West Bank this year have surpassed 1,000, with Stéphane Dujarric citing the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and warning that the current pace is higher than any year on record.

“Taybeh Junction, occupied West Bank - The barbed wire placed in front of the entrance of the Mleihat compound makes it cumbersome for women, children, the elderly and visitors to enter”

Al Jazeera

Dujarric said “Just last week, settler attacks resulted in the injury of more than 30 Palestinians and widespread damage to property, central infrastructure as well as livelihoods,” and he added that the average rate is “six incidents per day.”

Al Jazeera

The UN spokesman also said “More than 2,200 Palestinians have been displaced this year due to settler violence or access restrictions,” while hundreds more were displaced by home demolitions by Israeli authorities.

In the same reporting, the Gaza war was described as having been triggered by an unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct 7, 2023, and the West Bank violence was said to have escalated during and since that Gaza war.

In Taybeh Junction in the occupied West Bank, Muhammad Mleihat, 57, said barbed wire in front of the entrance of the Mleihat compound is meant to slow settlers down “long enough to be seen,” adding, “They have cutters.”

Mleihat described how his family were expelled in the 1948 Nakba, and he said he holds a tabu, an official land deed, in his own name for land about a kilometre or so northwest of Taybeh Junction.

Al-Jazeera Net

He said the settlers’ confrontation zone reached along Route 449 after Palestinian Bedouin villages east and south of the junction were “violently emptied,” and he described settlers arriving at night on donkeys and all-terrain vehicles.

The article tied the pattern to Amnesty International’s findings, which it said concluded that Israel is pursuing annexation through what it called a deliberate, state-backed campaign of ethnic cleansing against Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities.

It also cited UN figures in that Amnesty report, counting “some 5,910 Palestinians forced from 117 communities between January 2023 and April 2026,” with at least 45 depopulated entirely.

France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway and Australia announced coordinated sanctions on Israeli networks and leaders over settler violence, with France barring Bezalel Smotrich from its borders, according to a joint statement cited by Washington Jewish Week.

“The United Nations, on Thursday, expressed its regret over the sharp escalation of violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank at a record pace, with an average of six attacks per day resulting in casualties or damage”

Al-Jazeera Net

The statement said the measures aim to “hold extremist settlers accountable for the horrific levels of settler violence against Palestinian civilians,” and it described travel bans and asset freezes designed to disrupt finance flows to extremist settler groups.

The same reporting said the United Nations reported over 1,800 settler attacks against Palestinians in 2025, the highest number since it began documenting incidents in 2006, and it said violence has remained intense this year.

Amnesty International’s report, as quoted in the Amnesty International article, warned that “Over the past three and a half years, Israeli authorities have accelerated a state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank,” and it said this is “deliberate state-led annexation, in blatant violation of international law before the world.”

Amnesty International also said that by the end of April 2026, “at least 5,910 Palestinians had been forcibly displaced,” while it described Israeli settlers establishing 363 outposts in the occupied West Bank, with 212 created since 2023.