UN: ’Israeli’ Settler Attacks Hit 20-Year High

By Staff, Agencies

The United Nations warned of a sharp rise in illegal "Israeli" settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, marking October’s highest monthly toll in almost 2 decades.

On Friday, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq cited the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA], and reported “a sharp rise in settler violence against Palestinians, both in frequency and severity” during a news conference.

He added, “Last month, OCHA recorded 264 settler attacks that caused casualties, property damage, or both.”

The senior UN official said this marks the highest monthly toll in almost two decades of record tracking, averaging more than eight incidents per day since 2006.

Haq underscored the “severe” impact on the humanitarian situation since October 2023.

“More than 3,200 Palestinians have been displaced due to settler violence and related access restrictions. Entire herding communities have been completely depopulated. People have been killed, hundreds injured, including with live fire, and many more have lost access to their livelihoods,” he stated.

Haq also referenced data from OCHA, which revealed that “the number of Palestinian children killed by 'Israeli' forces in the West Bank so far this year has reached 42,” meaning “one in every five Palestinians killed by 'Israeli' forces in the West Bank in 2025 has been a child.”

This came on the same day that illegal "Israeli" settlers set fire to large swathes of agricultural land in the northern West Bank town of Arraba.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA, citing local sources, reported that the settlers ignited fires in vast tracts of farmland and olive groves located near the illegal settlement of "Dothan". The flames quickly spread across a wide area, damaging numerous olive trees.

Palestinian Civil Defense teams rushed to the scene and managed to bring the fire under control.

Elsewhere in Khirbet Humsa village, settlers demolished several Palestinian homes and livestock shelters.

Mutaaz Bisharat, the official in charge of settlement affairs in Tubas and the northern Jordan Valley region, said in a statement that the assailants used bulldozers to destroy the homes and animal pens belonging to a Palestinian family.

He highlighted that "Israeli" forces had previously demolished the same structures roughly two years ago, after which they were rebuilt. However, he did not specify the number of units destroyed this time.

Bisharat denounced the increasing settler attacks, describing them as an attempt to drive Palestinian residents out of the Jordan Valley and expropriate as much land as possible.

Since October 2023, "Israeli" forces and settlers have intensified attacks across the West Bank, claiming over 1,066 Palestinians, injuring 10,300, and carrying out 766 assaults on homes, property, and livelihoods in October alone.”

In July 2024, the ICJ ruled "Israel’s" occupation of historic Palestine illegal and called for all West Bank and East al-Quds settlements to be removed, though no action has been taken.