Israel West Bank 2025-

The 1997 Hebron Agreement (officially the Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron) was an Israeli-Palestinian accord signed on January 15, 1997. It facilitated an Israeli military withdrawal from 80% of Hebron, transferring administrative and security control to the Palestinian Authority while keeping the remaining 20% under Israeli military control to protect Jewish settlers

31 July
Israeli military cracks down on West Bank village as settlers march in
(Reuters) – Israeli forces shot and wounded at least one Palestinian, ‌arrested at least three, and closed entrances to the village of Tal in the occupied West Bank on Friday as more than 100 Israeli settlers marched towards the village, residents said.
A settler attack last weekend had left four Palestinians and two Israelis dead, an incident that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government characterised as terrorism – although video ​later emerged showing armed settlers shoving Palestinians. The Palestinian villagers say they were defending themselves against settler attacks that aim to drive them ​off the land, the latest in a three-year surge of such violence in the West Bank.
Since last Friday, the Israeli military ⁠has carried out near-daily raids and arrests in Tal, which is near Nablus in the northern West Bank – where most countries and U.N. bodies ​consider Israeli settlements illegal, a position that Israel rejects.

29 July
UN rights office warns of worsening settler violence in West Bank
The U.N. human rights office on Wednesday warned of worsening violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, and urged international action against the killing of ​Palestinians as well as the creation of settlements, which it said had reached an ‌all-time high.
The U.N. human ​rights office said settler violence and actions tantamount to ongoing annexation of Palestinian territory in the ​West Bank had worsened in the two years since a ruling at the International Court of Justice in July 2024 that ‌Israel’s occupation ⁠of Palestinian territory and settlements there were illegal and should be withdrawn. Israel at the time rejected the finding as “fundamentally wrong” and one-sided.
Violence in the West Bank has surged since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, with the U.N., rights groups and Palestinian officials reporting a sharp rise ​in settler attacks.
Earlier in ​July, Israel’s security cabinet ⁠approved 1.3 billion shekels ($434 million) to establish 34 new settlements in the West Bank, territory that Israel captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians seek ​as the core of a future state.

26 July
2 mosques in the West Bank are set on fire during a deadly surge in settler violence
(AP) — Two mosques in the Israeli-occupied West Bank were set on fire overnight in an apparent Israeli settler attack, officials said Sunday, after a spate of deadly violence that killed four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers.
Palestinians and the Israeli opposition accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government of turning a blind eye to attacks by settlers against Palestinians, which threaten to ignite widespread violence across the territory.
Israeli soldiers and police fanned out across the West Bank after the attack, closing off major roads and blocking access to a hospital where it said two militants were hiding. Israel also arrested more than 70 Palestinians over the weekend as they attempted to contain the escalating violence.
Israeli settlers burn two mosques in occupied West Bank
(Al Jazeera) Israeli settlers set fire to two mosques in separate attacks across the occupied West Bank, causing significant damage and leaving racist graffiti. Palestinian officials say at least 45 mosques have been vandalised or burned by settlers since 2025.

30 June
Palestine weekly: Israel accelerates land grabs in Gaza, West Bank
Permanent alterations begin at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque as plans advance for settlements in Gaza, while a UN inquiry finds Israel deliberately killed Palestinian children.
(Al Jazeera) Earlier this month, Israeli ministers had described their expanding colonial project in the language of intent – with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announcing the “cancellation” of the Hebron Accords, and Israeli broadcasters reporting on the government cabinet’s intended “quiet annexation” of Gaza. This week, that vision began to take physical shape.
In Hebron, Israeli forces brought heavy machinery into the Ibrahimi Mosque and began installing steel beams over its open courtyard – a structural alteration the mosque’s director called a fundamental change to the ancient site’s historic character; Israeli authorities have also blocked the Muslim call to prayer there for a week and a half.
In Gaza, Smotrich announced that the Settlement Administration he heads had “completed plans” for three settlements in the north of the Strip and called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to approve them. And along the so-called “Yellow Line” demarcating Israeli control within Gaza, Israeli forces pushed their cement markers further west, expanding the territory under their control.

11 June
Israeli government mulling huge funding to expand West Bank settlement: NGO
The proposal, if passed, would mark one of the largest expansions of illegal Israeli settlements in decades.
(Al Jazeera) The Israeli government has allocated a first tranche of an expected $388m in new funds for the construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The anti-settlement group Peace Now reported on Thursday that the government had allocated 152 million shekels ($51m) to prepare construction plans for 69 illegal settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank.
The cabinet later reportedly postponed a decision about a 1-billion-shekel ($338m) allocation. That proposal, if passed, would mark one of the largest expansions of illegal Israeli settlements in decades.
“The government decided to postpone the decision [on the 1-billion-shekel allocation] and refer it to the Security Cabinet which is expected to convene on Sunday,” Peace Now wrote.
Under the yet-to-be-approved plan, construction for the settlements, including infrastructure and public buildings, would begin despite necessary planning protocols not having been carried out in accord with Israeli law.
Israel sends West Bank settlement funding plan to security cabinet
Security cabinet to decide on 1 billion shekel West Bank settlement plan
Plan promoted by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, opposed by Peace Now and Palestinians
Cabinet also approved 4 billion shekel plan for regional development in Arab towns
… About 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, a move not recognised by most countries, but has not formally extended sovereignty over the West Bank.
U.N. bodies and most countries view the West Bank settlements as illegal, citing international conventions. Israel disputes this, saying a Jewish presence has ​existed in the West Bank ​for thousands of years.

20-22 May
Western nations warn Israel to end illegal settlement expansion, violence
Nine countries including UK, Germany and France warn settlements in occupied West Bank are a ‘breach of international law’.
The surge of new West Bank outposts
(GZERO media) With the help of government funds and the police, settlers have been creating new settlements at a rapid clip since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed a coalition with far-right leaders Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. The current coalition government itself has approved over 100 such communities. But settler groups have also formed settlements that the Israeli authorities don’t recognize, known as “outposts,” benefitting from a security system where law enforcement is reluctant to charge them – meanwhile, Palestinians could now face a death sentence if convicted of terror.
Israeli settlers burn vehicles, install caravans in occupied West Bank (video)
Palestinian residents say Israeli settlers burned vehicles, sprayed racist graffiti, and installed caravans near Palestinian communities, in the latest example of settler violence and settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

15 May
Three years of the West Bank’s ‘third Nakba’
Displacement and violence haunt Palestinian Bedouins, forced from their homes repeatedly since the Nakba of 1948.
(Al Jazeera) Fresh off the seventh forced displacement of his central West Bank Bedouin community since 1948, Abu Najjeh, the mukhtar, or leader, of the former Bedouin community of Ein Samiyawas, was in a rush, too busy reacting to the crises of the day – the continuing “third Nakba”, as he called it.
… Just that morning, Jewish settlers had stolen hundreds of sheep and two tractors from a member of his extended family in Jiljilyya, to the north of Rammun, as well as shooting and killing 16-year-old Yousef Kaabneh – also from Abu Najjeh’s Kaabneh clan.
Like the community of Ein Samiya, Yousef and his family had been forcibly displaced from Wadi as-Seeq in 2023, one of dozens of Palestinian Bedouin communities emptied since October 7, 2023. Already ascendant, the Israeli far right has used the Hamas-led attack on Israel, along with the cover of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, to ramp up attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank and seize more land.

11 May
EU announces sanctions against violent Israeli settlers
Bloc breaks its lengthy deadlock on the issue but falls short of imposing full-scale trade sanctions
(The Guardian) France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said the EU was “sanctioning the main Israeli organisations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonisation of the West Bank, as well as their leaders”.
“These most serious and intolerable acts must cease without delay,” he wrote on social media.
The full list of names has not been published following Monday’s agreement in principle but is understood not to include two extremist Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. The pair were put under UK sanctions last June for their “repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities”.

2 May
‘Go inside, he will kill you’: Israeli militants step up West Bank school attacks
Education is being targeted across Palestine, with the murder of 14-year-old Aws al-Naasan only the latest in a spree of violence
(The Guardian) Education is under attack across occupied Palestine. The situation is most severe in Gaza, where more than 600,000 school-age children are approaching the end of a third year without formal in-person education. Israeli attacks there have killed at least 792 teachers and 18,639 students, according to the UN, and damaged or destroyed nine out of 10 school buildings.
But students and schools are also targets of spiralling Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank, where there is a climate of near total impunity for attacks on Palestinians.
… A few hours after Aws was killed outside his school, settlers attacked and demolished a British- and European-funded school for Palestinian children in a village 25 miles to the north.
In Hammamat al-Maleh, in the northern Jordan valley, settlers used bulldozers to raze four classrooms, school toilets and the two playground areas into a heap of twisted metal and crumpled plastic, scattered with ruined books.
The French government, which contributed some of the funding to the school, has demanded compensation from the Israeli government for the destruction.
In the south Hebron Hills, on 13 April Israeli settlers put razor-wire across the road to the school attended by Palestinian children from Umm al-Khair village, blocking students from crossing since then.

25 March
Israeli former PM calls on ICC to halt West Bank ‘Jewish terrorists’ after prosecutions stop
Guardian analysis of settler violence shows no Israelis prosecuted since 2020 for killing Palestinian civilians, as former military, police and spy chiefs describe ‘organised Jewish terrorism’
Israel has not prosecuted its citizens for killing Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank since the start of this decade, a Guardian analysis of legal data and public records show, creating impunity for a campaign of violence.
Attacks have spurred former prime minister Ehud Olmert to call for an intervention by the international criminal court (ICC), to “save the Palestinians and us [Israelis]” from state-backed settler violence, carried out with the complicity and sometimes participation of the police and military.
“I have decided not only to not remain silent, but to draw the attention of the ICC in The Hague so that it may take enforcement measures and issue arrest warrants,’” Olmert said in written comments to the Guardian.

25 February
Israeli army, settlers attack Palestinians in Hebron area of West Bank
(Al Jazeera) Four Palestinians wounded in settler attack, while several others shot in raid by Israeli military south of Hebron in the occupied territory.
A number of Palestinians have been injured in separate attacks by the Israeli army and settlers in the Hebron area of the occupied West Bank, amid an escalating wave of state-backed violence as Israel concurrently continues its genocidal war on Gaza.
In ad-Dhahiriya, about 24km (15 miles) southwest of Hebron, Israeli forces fired live and rubber bullets as they carried out a raid on Tuesday night, security sources told the Wafa news agency.

Israeli settlers deface, set fire to West Bank mosque during Ramadan
Attack on Nablus-area mosque is latest in surge of Israeli settler and military violence targeting Palestinians
(Al Jazeera) Israeli settlers have defaced and set fire to a mosque in the occupied West Bank during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, marking the latest incident in a wave of Israeli violence against Palestinians in the territory.
The Wafa news agency reported on Monday that settlers graffitied racist slogans on the walls of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq Mosque, located between the towns of Sarra and Tal, near Nablus in the north of the West Bank.

17 February
Thomas L. Friedman: Netanyahu Plays Trump and American Jews for Fools — Again
While keeping Trump focused on the Iranian missile and nuclear threat — which, though reduced, is still very real and will have to be dealt with diplomatically or militarily — Bibi is fundamentally threatening broader U.S. interests in the Middle East, not to mention the security of Jews all over the world. In what way? I cannot put it any more succinctly than Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister, did.
“A violent and criminal effort is underway to ethnically cleanse territories in the West Bank,” he wrote in an essay in Haaretz this month. “Gangs of armed settlers persecute, harm, wound and even kill Palestinians living there. The rampages include burning olive groves, houses and cars; breaking into homes; and physically assaulting people.” He continued: “The rioters, the Jewish terrorists, storm Palestinians with hate and violence with one objective: to force them to flee from their homes. All this is done in the hopes that the land will then be prepared for Jewish settlement, en route to realizing the dream of annexing all the territories.”
… Israel’s accelerating attempts toward annexation of the West Bank and to permanently remain in Gaza — and deny Palestinians political rights in both areas — are as morally reckless and demographically insane as would be the U.S. annexing Mexico.
Ehud Olmert: A Settler Drive to Ethnically Cleanse Palestinians Is Underway in the West Bank. Israel’s Security Apparatus Is Complicit
A militia of hundreds of Jews is operating in the West Bank with direct and indirect backing from Israeli government officials, while security agencies have deliberately chosen not to take action against them

9- 11 February
‘A step in the wrong direction’: Israel’s West Bank plans prompt global backlash
US, Britain, EU and Arab nations condemn plans that Israeli ministers say will ‘kill the idea of a Palestinian state’
(The Guardian) Israeli measures to tighten its control of the West Bank have prompted a global backlash, including a signal from Washington restating the Trump administration’s opposition to annexation of the occupied territory.
Announcing the measures, which involve extending Israeli control in areas that are currently under Palestinian administration, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, made clear they were aimed at strengthening Israeli settlements in the West Bank and pre-empting the emergence of an independent sovereign Palestine.
Israeli minister calls West Bank measures ‘de facto sovereignty,’ says no future Palestinian state
(AP) The steps “actually establish a fact on the ground that there will not be a Palestinian state,” Energy Minister Eli Cohen told Israel’s Army Radio.
Israel Gives Itself More Control Over Occupied West Bank
The security cabinet took actions that make it easier for Jews to buy land in the territory. Critics say the changes violate the Oslo Accords and international law and accelerate attempts to annex the land.
Israel’s government has taken unilateral steps to give itself greater control over the occupied West Bank, challenging President Trump’s opposition to Israeli annexation of the territory in a move widely considered a violation of international law.
The measures, which make it easier for Jewish settlers to buy land and undercut the Palestinian Authority in parts of the West Bank that it administers, appear to flout important agreements that Israel signed under the Oslo peace process decades ago.
The changes were made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet at a closed-door meeting on Sunday. By enhancing Israel’s control over West Bank territory the Palestinians want for a future state, they effectively advance the cause of annexation by degrees — continuing a strategy that the government has been pursuing for years.
But they come after Mr. Trump’s recent, explicit rejection of annexation, his acknowledgment of the Palestinians’ aspirations to statehood — made explicit in his peace plan for Gaza — and his support for political talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Israeli plans deepen de facto annexation of occupied West Bank
Israel approves plans to expand its power across the occupied West Bank, making it easier to seize Palestinian land illegally.
(Al Jazeera) While the world remains fixated on the devastation in Gaza and escalating regional tensions, the Israeli government has quietly executed a “legal coup” in the occupied West Bank, drawing condemnation from Palestinians.
Late on Sunday, Israel’s security cabinet ratified a series of decisions pushed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz. The new measures, which aim to expand Israel’s power across the occupied West Bank, will make it easier to seize Palestinian land illegally.
Eight Muslim countries slam Israel’s ‘illegal’ West Bank annexation push
In joint statement, countries urge international community to ‘compel Israel to halt its dangerous escalation’.
Eight Muslim-majority countries have denounced Israel for trying to impose “unlawful Israeli sovereignty” in the occupied West Bank, after it approved controversial new measures expanding its control and making it easier for Israeli settlers to buy land.
Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates condemned Israel’s move “in the strongest terms” on Monday, according to a Saudi Foreign Ministry statement.

26 January
How Israel is planning to build an ‘apartheid road’ – video
(The Guardian) Israel plans to start work next month on a bypass that will close off the heart of the occupied West Bank to Palestinians and cement the de facto annexation of an area critical for the viability of a future Palestinian state. The road is a key part of the blueprint for a vast illegal new settlement in the E1 area east of Jerusalem, which would fragment the occupied West Bank. The far-right Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the plans were intended to ‘bury the idea of a Palestinian state’

13 January
Israel poised to start construction of bypass through heart of West Bank
Road project, part of blueprint for new illegal settlement in E1 area east of Jerusalem, is considered a tool of annexation
(The Guardian) Israel plans to start work next month on a bypass road that will close off the heart of the occupied West Bank to Palestinians and cement the de facto annexation of an area critical for the viability of a future Palestinian state.
The road is a key part of the blueprint for a vast illegal new settlement in the E1 area east of Jerusalem, which would fragment the occupied West Bank. The Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the plans were intended to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.
Designed as a sealed transit corridor for Palestinian vehicles, the bypass will provide Israel with a pretext to bar Palestinians from existing roads in the planned settlement area, where only Israeli vehicles will be permitted.

2025

1 December
It’s not just Gaza. From the West Bank to Syria and Lebanon, Israel’s onslaught continues
Nesrine Malik
Broken ceasefires, bombing, ground incursions and mounting deaths: Israeli imperialism is now expanding across the region

25 November
Israel’s systematic campaign to expel West Bank Palestinians (video)
(Al Jazeera) The UN has documented nearly 3,000 settler attacks across the occupied West Bank since October 2023, driving communities from their land in what Palestinians say is a deliberate, violent campaign to displace them.

20 August
Israel approves controversial West Bank settlement project
E1 settlement expansion would divide territory, complicate 2-state solution efforts
(CBC) Israel gave final approval for a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank that would effectively cut the territory in two. Palestinians and rights groups say it could destroy plans for a future Palestinian state.
Settlement development in E1, an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades, but was frozen due to U.S. pressure during previous administrations.
On Wednesday, the project received final approval from the Israeli government planning and building committee after the last petitions against it were rejected on Aug. 6. If the process moves quickly, infrastructure work could begin in the next few months, and construction of homes could start in around a year.
The plan includes around 3,500 apartments to expand the settlement of Maale Adumim, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said during a news conference at the site last Thursday. Smotrich cast the approval as a riposte to Western countries that announced their plans to recognize a Palestinian state in recent weeks.

14 August
UN protests Israeli minister’s proposal of settlement to ‘bury’ idea of Palestinian state
Settlement would effectively divide Israeli-occupied West Bank, cut it off from East Jerusalem
(Thomson Reuters via CBC) Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that work would start on a long-delayed settlement that would divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, a move his office said would “bury” the idea of a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian government, allies and campaign groups condemned the scheme, calling it illegal and saying the fragmentation of territory would rip up peace plans for the region.
Standing at the site of the planned settlement in Maale Adumim on Thursday, Smotrich, a settler himself, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump had agreed to the revival of the E1 development, though there was no immediate confirmation from either.