https://arab.news/ptzf8
Cometh the olive harvest season in Palestine, cometh the exponential increase in settler terrorism against Palestinians in the West Bank who harvest their olive trees. It has been more than a year since the International Court of Justice ruled that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land was unlawful and must end almost immediately — although, unfortunately, this scenario is unlikely in the immediate future. Yet, even if Israel rejects this ruling, it is still beyond comprehension why the government and its security forces are not doing everything in their power to stop the violence inflicted by Jewish settlers in the West Bank on their Palestinian neighbors.
There is a relatively small group of settlers, although not insignificant, that is becoming more emboldened in stepping up its abhorrent behavior as international attention is elsewhere, while a government is in power in which the ultraright-wing rules supreme, and after years of similar violence with almost complete impunity.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in 2025, there have been “1,680 settler attacks across more than 270 communities — an average of five per day.” This is a staggering number. As such, settler violence is not new, but it is the constant swelling of this phenomenon and its increasing intensity and brazenness — while protected physically by the security forces and politically by the settlers’ representatives in government — that signify a much greater threat to the local Palestinian population and a future peace based on a two-state solution.
