The situation in the West Bank has witnessed three phases of violence and ethnic cleansing over the past seven years. The first phase was after the 2017 US elections, when Donald Trump came to power and introduced his plan for "peace" in the Middle East known as the Deal of the Century. Under the terms of the Trump administration's plan, released in January 2020, only 40% of Area C would be transferred back to the Palestinians. Following this announcement, settlers intensified their activities in these areas by establishing outposts on the borders of Palestinian communities.
The second phase was the latest Israeli elections that have given more power and impunity to the settlers. Ben Gvir, the current Minister of National Security, together with Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's Minister of Finance, belong to a far-right settler group, where they lead illegal settler activities in the West Bank. From November 2022 to 7 October 2023, Palestinians witnessed escalating land grabs and direct attacks by armed settlers. Since then, pogroms have been taking place in more and more areas of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The third phase began on 7 October after the surprise attack from Gaza on Israeli agricultural settlements and military bases and continues to this day. The day after the attack, Israeli settlers markedly escalated their already violent escalation against Palestinians and became, in effect, another arm of the army.
Isolation and restriction of movement.
Following the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, the Israeli army closed the entrances to villages and towns in the occupied West Bank. The new reality that Israel has been imposing on Palestinians since that day has reminded them of the situation in the early years of the Second Intifada, which broke out in 2000. While their freedom of movement is restricted, the Israeli colonial authorities have also given illegal settlers the green light to invade Palestinian villages and homes to the extent that life has become impossible in the West Bank, especially in Area C, which comprises 61 per cent of the West Bank under full Israeli military control.
The Israeli army has also been repressing Palestinian freedom to express their national identity. Israeli soldiers who constantly invade Palestinian cities confiscate flags raised on schools and other public buildings. This is not new. Palestinians were forbidden to raise the Palestinian flag during the first intifada. In the past four months, some 7,040 Palestinians have been arrested, including 220 women and 440 children, and 1,200 people held in administrative detention without charge or trial. 5.
Settlers become soldiers
The rise of systemic settler violence in Area 'C' started with the distribution of 15.000 rifles to illegal settlers by Israeli National Security Minister Ben Gvir. There are still 25,000 more rifles ready for distribution. In a new development in Israeli settler violence, Palestinian communities in the area reported that Israeli settlers attacked them while wearing Israeli army uniforms. These settler-soldiers are taking the opportunity created by the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip to ethnically cleanse the agricultural communities in Area 'C'.
Settler attacks and forced displacement of Palestinians
According to human rights organisations Since 7 October, 464 Palestinians have been killed by armed Israeli settlers in the West Bank, while more than 34,000 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip during the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Due to intensified settler violence, most Palestinian families were unable to reach their land and harvest their olive trees. Belal Saleh a farmer from the village of Asawya, was shot dead by an Israeli settler while picking his olive trees. For Palestinian farmers, olives are their only source of livelihood and they depend on them as a source of income. This year the farmers lost their harvest and settlers again took advantage of the situation and looted their land, in some cases burning entire plantations of centuries-old olive trees.
In addition to the physical harm inflicted on Palestinians, Israeli settler attacks have caused damage to thousands of Palestinian properties. According to UN agencies In the first quarter of 2010, more than 1,227 settler attacks were documented since 7 October and more than 2,410 attacks during 2023. This is the highest number since UN OCHA began recording Israeli settler violence in 2006.
More than 16 Palestinian Bedouin communities numbering 1,600 people have been ethnically cleansed since 7 October as a result of escalating Israeli settler violence. The dispossession of these communities points to the ongoing and recurring Nakba they have been enduring.
Limiting organised nonviolent resistance; no international solidarity group was able to unite
After 7 October, the space for popular non-violent resistance campaigns aimed at protecting and minimising settler attacks has diminished, with the accompaniment of international and Palestinian activists from other cities organising to accompany the farmers and documenting what is happening to them. Israeli settlers also attacked these defenders by shooting at them. This happened to Ibrahim Wadi, an activist from the village of Qusra when he and his son were shot dead on 12 October. Settlers also brutally attacked many activists, as happened to Mattar and nothing when they were stripped naked and filmed.
More importantly, this critical period of the Palestinian struggle is marked by an increased sense of fear due to armed settlers. Moreover, it reveals Israel's aims of ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their land when Israeli settlers openly called for Palestinians to move to Jordan or they will face the same transfer situation they faced in 1948. As one Palestinian said "today they bombed Gaza and tomorrow they will transfer us from the West Bank".
Every year, Palestinian activists, together with international and Israeli activists, support and protect the farmers during the olive harvest through a campaign called fazaa (help and support). This year the campaign was cancelled because no one was able to move from their villages or towns. In addition, international volunteers cancelled their flights due to the escalating violence and were unable to join the farmers during the harvest season.
5 https://www.addameer.org/
