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West Bank Settlers Have Injured More People in 2025 Than Last 2 Years Combined

Israeli settler violence has hit a record high this year, with explicit backing from the government.

Israeli border guards approach a Palestinian woman on a rural road near olive groves in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on October 27, 2025. With the olive harvest season starting in October, farmers in the region are frequently subject to attacks by Israeli settlers.

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Israeli settler attacks in the occupied West Bank have injured over a thousand Palestinians so far this year, the UN reports — nearly more than the tally for the past two years combined.

As of November 24, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for the occupied Palestinian territories had recorded 733 Palestinians confirmed injured by Israeli settlers, with an additional 324 injured either by Israeli soldiers or settlers amid settler attacks. This adds up to a total of 1,057 injured.

This is more than double the number of injuries in the previous year, which saw 362 injuries in confirmed settler attacks and 124 injuries that may have been done by soldiers amid the attacks, for a total of 486. It is also a drastic increase from 2023, when OCHA recorded 373 Palestinians injured by settler attacks.

These injuries are on top of 690 Palestinians, including 131 children, killed by Israeli forces or settlers between January 2024 and September 2025, OCHA reports. This amounts to more than one Palestinian killed per day in the West Bank alone.

The injuries are a result of a drastic increase in attacks by Israel in the West Bank this year, with settler attacks reaching a record high in October and the Israeli military conducting horrific raids and ethnic cleansing of West Bank refugee camps earlier this year. These actions are all explicitly encouraged by Israeli officials, who have openly spoken of their desire to annex the West Bank with “minimum population” of Palestinians.

According to OCHA, settlers have carried out over 1,600 attacks on Palestinians that have led to casualties or property damage this year so far. Injuries were largely caused by “physical assault, stones, or tear gas inhalation,” the agency found.

OCHA reported on two households who were forcibly displaced on November 23 by repeated attacks on their home and the establishment of a settler outpost in a Bedouin community in the Jericho governorate. The families consisted of 12 people total, including eight children, whose homes were broken into and ransacked by settlers, the agency found. This was the second displacement in the community of Al Hathroura in November alone.

Last week, Israeli forces were caught on camera killing two unarmed Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, as they raised their hands in surrender. Even though the men surrendered, Israeli forces shot and killed them at point-blank range.

Just weeks before, Israeli settlers set fire to a mosque, the Hajja Hamida Mosque, in the northern West Bank. Settlers vandalized the walls with anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim phrases and burned copies of the Quran.

The mosque attack drew widespread condemnation. “Such attacks on places of worship are completely unacceptable,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN secretary-general António Guterres. “Israel, as the occupying power, has a responsibility to protect the civilian population and ensure that those responsible for these attacks, including this attack on a mosque and the spray-painting of horrendous language on the mosque, be brought to account.”

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