‘They have total impunity’: West Bank settler violence surges after Gaza ceasefire UN logs 260 attacks in October alone, its highest monthly tally, as settlers attack farmers and burn olive trees

Vehicles belonging to Palestinian olive farmers were set on fire by Israelis in the village of Turmus Ayya near Ramallah in October. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Violence has increased across the occupied West Bank as Palestinian farmers try to harvest their olive trees before the end of the season, in the face of a concerted campaign of harassment by groups of armed and aggressive Israeli settlers.

Dozens of new incidents have occurred in recent days across much of the occupied territory as settlers step up a broader effort to intimidate and harm Palestinian communities.

“It’s really bad at the moment. The settlers are operating with total impunity,” said Aviv Tatarsky, an Israeli activist who has worked in the West Bank for decades.

Early on Sunday, settlers vandalised cars on the outskirts of the town of Sinjil and “raided” farmland near the village of Mughayyir, according to local reports. On Saturday, a farmer was assaulted and his crops damaged by settlers in the town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus.

Attacks by settlers on the West Bank have increased since the US-brokered deal stopped the war in Gaza almost six weeks ago after two years of devastating conflict. The UN logged more than 260 attacks resulting in Palestinian casualties or damage to property in the West Bank in October alone – the highest monthly count since they began monitoring in 2006.

Records kept by the Palestinian Farmers’ Union (PFU) show incidents of violence against its members up fourfold, from three or four daily before the war in Gaza. The most recent attacks are “not random, but deliberate efforts to undermine Palestinian rural life”, the PFU said in a statement last month.

Last week, settlers were reported to have assaulted agricultural workers and olive pickers in the town of Beit Duqqu, near Jerusalem, prevented Palestinians from plowing their land in al-Farisiyah in the northern Jordan valley, burned olive trees belonging to local Palestinians outside two villages near the city of Qalqilya and attacked farmers near Aqraba.

Another attack by settlers targeted the village of Beit Lid, where a light industrial park was ransacked and 10 vehicles were torched. Four Palestinians were injured during the assault by dozens of masked settlers, who also attacked Israeli soldiers after they arrived to restore order.

In Beit Lid, Mahmoud Edeis said he wanted merely “to feel that my children are safe, that when I go to sleep I can say: ‘OK, there’s nothing [to worry about].

“But at any moment something could happen … This can’t go on. It can’t be that we keep living our whole lives in a state of fear and danger.”... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/18/west-bank-surge-settler-violence-israel-palestine

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