I awoke yesterday to another round of smoke on the horizon. In the West Bank village of Jit, residents stood amid charred olive trees and torched vehicles while Israeli police and military personnel documented the scene with a now-familiar routine of photographs and statement-taking. This was the fourth such settler attack I’d covered in three weeks.
“They came around midnight, more than 20 of them, faces covered,” explained Mahmoud Salim, a 62-year-old olive farmer whose family has worked this land for generations. “We called the Israeli authorities immediately, but they arrived after the settlers had already burned three cars and set fire to our olive grove.”
The timing seems deliberate. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared for high-level diplomatic meetings in Washington this week, violence by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities has intensified across the occupied West Bank.
Data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirms what many Palestinians have been reporting: settler violence has increased by approximately 43% since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, with over 650 documented incidents resulting in Palestinian casualties or property damage. Yesterday’s attack in Jit follows a similar pattern seen in villages like Burqa, Qusra, and Huwara in recent months.
The Israeli military establishment itself appears increasingly concerned. Just last week, an internal IDF document leaked to Israeli newspaper Haaretz characterized some settler groups as engaging in “organized terror activities” against Palestinian civilians. The document, which I reviewed independently, highlights a troubling trend of coordination among radical settler elements that security forces have struggled to contain.
Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem researcher Dror Sadot told me during a phone interview that “what we’re witnessing is not random violence but systematic intimidation with a clear goal of forcing Palestinians off their land.” Sadot pointed to a disturbing pattern where settler attacks concentrate in areas designated for settlement expansion or near unauthorized outposts seeking retroactive legalization.
In Jit yesterday, I observed Israeli military personnel interviewing witnesses while keeping Palestinian residents separated from a small group of settlers who had gathered on a nearby hilltop. The soldiers maintained a buffer zone but made no arrests despite witness testimonies identifying some attackers.
For context, the West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. While Israeli civil law applies to the approximately 700,000 Jewish settlers living there, Palestinians live under military law. This dual legal system has created what human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch have described as an “apartheid” structure where perpetrators of violence face dramatically different consequences depending on their ethnicity.
“When Palestinians attack Israelis, homes get demolished, entire families face collective punishment,” explains Ashraf Jaradat, a legal advisor with the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq. “When settlers attack Palestinians, investigations rarely lead to prosecution.” Indeed, Israeli rights group Yesh Din reports that over 90% of investigations into ideologically motivated crimes against Palestinians end without indictments.
The economic impact extends beyond the immediate property damage. At a small auto repair shop in Jit, owner Kareem Abdel Rahman calculated his losses at over $15,000 from three torched vehicles. “Insurance companies won’t cover these damages,” he explained. “They consider it a security incident, not their responsibility.”
The diplomatic ramifications of settler violence have grown increasingly significant. Just last month, the U.S. State Department imposed visa restrictions on extremist settlers implicated in attacks against Palestinian civilians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken characterized the violence as “undermining security and stability in the West Bank.”
I’ve been covering the West Bank for nearly seven years, and longtime observers note a troubling shift in both the frequency and intensity of settler violence. “What’s changed is the political cover,” says Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli attorney specializing in Israeli-Palestinian relations in Jerusalem. “Previous governments at least maintained the pretense of opposing vigilante violence. The current coalition includes ministers who actively encourage it.”
Indeed, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have both previously expressed support for settler expansion and have criticized restrictions on settlement activity.
Back in Jit, as the sun set over charred olive trees, village council head Awad Sadeq expressed a sentiment I’ve heard increasingly across the West Bank: “We have no protection – not from Israel, not from the Palestinian Authority, not from the international community. We are simply trying to survive.”
As Netanyahu meets with U.S. officials this week to discuss Gaza ceasefire proposals, the escalating West Bank violence represents another front of instability threatening to undermine any progress toward broader regional peace. Without addressing the systemic impunity that enables settler violence, diplomatic initiatives risk building peace agreements on foundations of ongoing conflict.
For the residents of Jit, Washington’s diplomatic calendar means little as they clean soot from their homes and assess which olive trees might survive the flames. As I left the village, Mahmoud Salim offered a simple observation that crystallized the situation: “The world watches Gaza, but our slow displacement continues in plain sight.”
