Israeli settler violence

Israeli settlers have carried out acts of violence, intimidation, property damage, and other reported attacks mainly in the West Bank against Palestinians. Israeli settler violence has been documented since at least the late 20th century and includes incidents such as physical assaults, arson, vandalism, sexual violence, and shootings. Human rights and international organisations describe the system of control in the occupied territories as amounting to Israeli apartheid and report systematic violence in this context. Multiple reports have also described cases in which Israeli security forces were either accompanying or reportedly supporting the attackers, raising concerns over enforcement and accountability.

In November 2021, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz discussed the steep rise in the number of incidents between settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank, many of which result from attacks by residents of illegal settler outposts on Palestinians from neighboring villages. Settler violence also includes acts known as price tag attacks that are in response to actions by the Israeli government, usually against Palestinian targets and occasionally against Israeli security forces in the West Bank.

Palestinian police are forbidden from reacting to acts of violence by Israeli settlers, a fact which diminishes their credibility among Palestinians. Between January and November 2008, 515 criminal suits were opened by Israel against settlers for violence against Arabs or Israeli security forces; 502 of these involved "right wing radicals" while 13 involved "left wing anarchists". In 2008, the senior Israeli commander in the West Bank said that a hard core of a few hundred activists were involved in violence against the Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. Some prominent Jewish religious figures living in the occupied territories, as well as Israeli government officials, have condemned and expressed outrage over such behavior, while religious justifications for settler killings have also been given. Israeli media said the defense establishment began taking a harder line against unruly settlers starting in 2008. In 2011 the BBC reported that "vast majority of settlers are non-violent but some within the Israeli government acknowledge a growing problem with extremists." UN figures from 2011 showed that 90% of complaints filed against settlers by Palestinians with the Israeli police never led to indictment.

In the 21st century, there has been a steady increase in violence and terror perpetrated by Israeli settlers against Palestinians. In 2012, an EU heads of mission report found that settler violence had more than tripled in the three years up to 2011. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) figures state that the annual rate of settler attacks (2,100 attacks in 8 years) has almost quadrupled between 2006 and 2014. In 2021, there was yet another wave of settler violence which erupted after a 16-year-old settler died in a car chase with Israeli police after having hurled rocks at Palestinians. So far it has resulted in 44 incidents in the span of a few weeks, injuring two Palestinian children. In the latter parts of 2021, there has been a marked increase in settler violence toward Palestinians, condemned at the United Nations Security Council.

This violence increased further following the election of a far-right government in 2022 which proposed to expand Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, as well as the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. From 7 October 2023 to 31 December 2024, there were 1,860 incidents of settler violence, resulting in the deaths of 870 civilians, including 177 children. Of the 150 investigations into settler violence opened in 2024, less than 10% resulted in indictment.