Armed colonizers burn, kill, and murder with almost complete impunity – because their violence serves a larger system of land theft and dispossession.
Almost daily, there are updates about brutal attacks by armed Israeli settlers – in effect, settlers – against Palestinians. They shoot or brutally beat – sometimes to the point of murder – Palestinian civilians, men and women, young and old, including entire families.
These attacks have been happening for decades. I’ve written about them many times, including what I saw in various areas of the West Bank there i have eight months in 2007. At that time, the violence was already horrific. Now, the attacks are increasing rapidly. The ultimate goal is clear – to permanently expel the Palestinians from their own land.
While many rightly consider the increase in such attacks since 2023, and even more so after the Israeli-American attack on Iran, the massive increase in settler attacks began in 2021 and continues to grow to the present.
In November 2021, the Israeli publication Haaretz noted 150% increase in settler attacks since 2019. Report of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Posted September 2023 also saw an increase in attacks from 2021 to 2022. “An average of three settler-related incidents occurred per day in the first eight months of 2023, compared to an average of two per day in 2022 and one per day a year ago. This is the highest daily average of settler-related incidents affecting Palestinians since the UN began recording this data in 2006.”
Independent Human Rights Organization and Legal Center Adalah informed New rules passed by the Israeli Knesset in October 2023 enabling more Jewish Israelis to acquire and carry guns were an initiative launched by National Security Minister Ben-Gvir. This is on top of the fact that illegal Jewish settlers have already been carrying and using guns against Palestinian civilians for decades.
Adalah said, “By labeling Palestinians as the ‘enemy,’ Ben-Gvir, who does not hide his racist views towards Palestinians, seeks to legitimize the absolute freedom given to both the Israeli armed forces and brutal Jewish-Israeli vigilantes to kill and injure Palestinians.”
Arson crimes committed by settlers in recent months have included setting fire to homes and vehicles in southern community of susia; To House in Jenin area; set fire and burn The emergency room of the Palestinian Medical Relief Clinic in the Nablus area; Houses and vehicles were set on fire in the village of Taysir, east of Tubas (and cut open the forehead of a Palestinian resident) – to list only a handful of cases. In 2014, colonists kidnapped a young teenager and deliberately burned him alive. In 2015, they fire bombing A one-year-old baby was burned to death in a Palestinian home.
In February, The Cradle informed That Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, downgraded attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians from ‘terrorist attacks’ to ‘serious incidents’.
In March, hordes of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villages near an illegal colony between Nablus and Jenin, setting fire to homes, vehicles and property, according to Palestinians in the area, who also said Israeli forces blocked the entry of firefighters and ambulances.
“The Israeli army jeeps came with the settlers. The Israeli army chased the people and shot at them to make sure they could not fight the settlers.” an old resident testified.
From inside his burnt home, another man said, “Residents surrounded the house, threw Molotov cocktails and burned it. There were Israeli forces nearby, a drone was filming. It lasted 30 minutes. I was on the roof with my children, under attack, while the house was burning.”
Israeli NGO Yesh Din noted In January 2026, “Ideologically motivated violence by Israeli civilians against Palestinians has reached record highs over the past two years; attacks, some fatal, against Palestinians and their property now occur daily throughout the West Bank.”
Since 2005, the organization has been documenting crimes committed by Israeli civilians, settlers, and others against Palestinians in the West Bank. He noted, “Over twenty years of monitoring the results of investigations into ideologically motivated crimes against Palestinians shows that the State of Israel violates its obligation under both Israeli and international law to protect Palestinians in the West Bank from harm.”
According to Yesh Din, since 2005, only 3% of investigation files opened into such crimes against Palestinians resulted in full or partial convictions. They are right that this is not a mere mistake, but it is “There is evidence that Israel knowingly enables violence against defenseless civilians.”
By mid-April, Yash Deen informed 378 incidents of “Extremist settler violence against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank,” As a result, eight Palestinians were shot dead and 200 were injured by the colonists during the 40 days of American-Israeli bombing of Iran alone.
Masafar Yatta: A region under constant colonial attacks
I spent several months in the village SusiaIn the Masafar Yatta area in the South Hebron Hills, in 2007. Tent settlements (an inadequate dilapidated replacement for the Palestinians’ homes) unjustly evicted In the ’80s and ’90s) there were frequent attacks from both Israeli settlers and soldiers. One of the elderly Palestinian grandfathers was brutally beaten In 2006, his leg was badly injured by assailants from a gang of seven. In 2008, he and his wife were again brutally attacked and beaten by the colonizersAs a result, his wife was hospitalized for several days. The attackers were caught on video but were never held accountable.
Next, we observed the colonists are stealing Farms of elderly Palestinian deed-holders, continuously harass and attack Susia Palestinians, and the Israeli army and police are doing nothing to stop the attacks.
Fast forward to recent years, the attacks are more brazen and brutal, with the military and police more complicit.
Palestinian activists in the area have filmed some of the most violent attacks. In July 2025, a colonist with a gun was filmed Indiscriminate firing on Palestinians. Had the situation been reversed, the shooter would have died or languished under torture in an Israeli prison. In February 2026, footage shows Locals said that more than 30 armed settlers were carrying out a coordinated attack on Palestinian families in Susiya, “Throwing explosives into a house with a family inside, and breaking security cameras with stones to cover up the crime.”
It is undeniable that such attacks are an unofficial policy for Israel’s illegal expansionism as Yesh Din noted In January 2026, stating, “Settler violence serves Israel’s objectives of increasing its control over the occupied territory by terrorizing Palestinians and carrying out violence against them.”
A 2021 Haaretz article also quoted a senior Israeli security figure, “These are not attacks by bored children. You have to call things by their names. In some cases this is simply Jewish terrorism.”
complete impunity
Palestinian Christian human rights advocate Ihab Hassan, in April 2026 Post Regarding Israeli colonial attacks, noted, “If any Palestinian tries to defend his home from these terrorists, he will be killed or sentenced to life imprisonment. If settlers shoot and kill Palestinians in their own homes, nothing will happen to them. What should we say to a system that punishes the victims and gives complete immunity to the perpetrators on the basis of religion, race and nationality?”
In fact, in April the Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem informed On the Israeli colonial invasion of a Palestinian village “As part of ongoing efforts to take it over,” Note, “Those who tried to stop the residents with stones were met with heavy gunfire from a resident on military reserve duty who had joined the army with his friends. One bullet hit Ali Hamdaneh, 23, as he was running away and posed no threat, as evidenced by footage of the incident.”
B’Tselem said an Israeli army spokesman later claimed that a reserve soldier carried out the “The suspect-arrest process involved firing into the air and then firing at one of the stone throwers.”
‘abuse’
Recently the Italian magazine L’Espresso published a disturbing news. cover photo It depicts a mocking Israeli soldier taunting a Palestinian woman. The image, aptly titled ‘Abuse’, was shared widely on Twitter, sparking outrage among angry Israeli campaigners. They tried to claim that the photo was a fake, but the matter was resolved when L’Espresso released the accompanying photo Video Case of constable threatening woman.
The Israeli ambassador to Italy claimed that this photo “anti Semitic.” This claim was still widely contested Further examples Crazy looking Jewish colonists are harassing Palestinian citizens.
For Palestinians who have endured decades of despicable, often deadly, immigrant attacks, it is good that the wider world is finally becoming aware of both the crimes of immigrants and the complicity of the Israeli police and military. But awareness is not enough. Israel will never hold them accountable, much less stop them. They do the dirty work of Israeli expansionism.
In January 2026, Munther Isaac, a Palestinian evangelical Lutheran pastor in Ramallah and director of the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice, Posted, “Yesterday, Zionist settler thugs attacked the village of Birzeit, near Ramallah… When a woman from the village dared to shout at them and confront them, the settlers attacked her.” The woman was placed in intensive care and her condition eventually stabilized. But, according to Isaac, instead of arresting the attackers, Israeli forces arrested his son, who had tried to defend his mother. Isaac then writes: : “Let us call it: Zionist terrorism. The problem is not just the settlers. The problem is the system that empowers them. The problem is the immunity they enjoy. Lord, have mercy.”
He is right. This is the system that enables and encourages illegal Israeli settlers to attack, maim, and kill Palestinian civilians. The question is when or if these criminals will ever be stopped, let alone brought to justice.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of RT.
