Israeli army, settlers strike 2,350 times in West Bank last month: Report

According to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC) of the Palestinian Authority, Israeli forces and settlers carried out 2,350 attacks across the occupied West Bank last month.

According to CRRC director Mu’ayyad Sha’ban, Israeli forces carried out 1, 584 attacks, including direct physical attacks, home demolitions, and the eradication of olive trees, with the majority of the attacks involving the governorates of Ramallah (542), Nablus (412), and Hebron (404).

766 settlers’ attacks were also identified in the research, which was included in a CRRC monthly report titled Occupation Violations and Colonial Expansion Measures. According to the commission, as part of what it called an “organized strategy that aims to displace the land’s indigenous people and impose a fully racist colonial regime,” they are expanding settlements, which are against international law.

According to the report, settler attacks have reached a new high, with most aiming at Nablus, Nablus, and Hebron. According to the report, “state terror” that had been “orchestrated in the dark backrooms of the occupation government” was what caused the majority of attacks on orange pickers.

It described instances of Israeli “vandalism and theft” being carried out in charahoots with Israeli soldiers that had witnessed the “uprooting, destruction, and poisoning” of 1,200 olive trees in Hebron, Ramallah, Tubas, Qalqilya, Nablus, and Bethlehem. Since October in the governorates of Hebron and Nablus, settlers have attempted to build seven new outposts on Palestinian land during the violence.

As part of Israeli government efforts to seize Palestinian land and forcefully evict residents, the Israeli military has been removing olive trees, a significant cultural symbol for Palestine, across the West Bank for decades.

The Israeli government’s Higher Planning Council (HPC), which is a member of the Israeli army’s Civil Administration overseeing the occupied West Bank, is expected to meet on Wednesday to discuss the construction of 1, 985 new settlement units in the West Bank.

Avnei Hefetz and Einav Plan, two isolated settlements in the northern West Bank, were to be rolled out in accordance with the left-wing Israeli movement Peace Now, which announced the deployment of 1, 288 of the units.

According to the report, the HPC has been convening weekly meetings since November of last year to promote housing projects in the settlements, bringing about normalization and faster land-grabbing from Palestinians.

According to Peace Now, the HPC has moved forward a record 28, 195 housing units since the start of 2025.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s claim that plans to construct thousands of homes as part of the West Bank’s proposed E1 settlement scheme “buries the idea of a Palestinian state” was met with international condemnation in August was met with condemnation.

The E1 project, which was shelved for years due to American and European allies’ opposition, would link Maale Adumim, an existing illegal Israeli settlement, with occupied East Jerusalem.

The occupation of the West Bank by the Israeli far right would essentially eliminate the possibility of a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as outlined in numerous UN resolutions.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has vowed never to permit Israel to annex the occupied territory. Trump vowed to oppose Israeli annexation of the West Bank and that it would not occur while US Vice President JD Vance was recently in Israel. As he left Israel, Vance said, “If it was a political stunt, it is very stupid one, and I personally take some insults to it.”