A Palestinian uses a flashlight on a nearby hill while taking part in a night watch with other volunteers to deter settler attacks on the West Bank village of Sinjil, July 16, 2026.
Escalating Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have fully or partially displaced 107 communities since January 2023 alongside unprecedented settlement expansion.Settlers responsible for attacks operate with the financial, material, and legal backing of the Israeli state. Attacks by armed settlers often occur alongside Israeli army units or with soldiers standing by.Other countries should impose targeted sanctions on those implicated in ongoing grave abuses, suspend arms transfers to Israel, ban trade with illegal settlements, and consider suspending preferential trade agreements with Israel.
(Beirut) – Attacks by settlers in the occupied West Bank are increasingly driving the forced displacement of Palestinian communities, with dozens at risk of erasure, Human Rights Watch said today. Israeli authorities are arming, funding, and granting impunity to the violent settlers responsible for these escalating deadly abuses.
Settler violence spiked in March and April 2026, with killings, including of children, as well as assaults, sexual violence, physical and mental abuse, arbitrary detention, arson, property destruction, and theft. The attacks occurred during the United States and Israel’s war with Iran, but the rising trend has been clear since the current government took office in December 2022.
“The Israeli government and the settlers share the same goal of maximum land and minimum Palestinians, with the authorities not only failing to stop settler violence, but actively enabling it,” said Sarah Sanbar, acting Israel and Palestine researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Settlers shoot, attack, and expel Palestinians from their land, and the state provides the weap
