Agriculture and livestock on Hiyam Sabah’s land, village of ‘
Urif, Nablus District. Photo by Salma a-Deb’i,
B’Tselem, 29 April 2018 (Ramallah), in the occupied West Bank, April 2024 Olive farming is a major industry and employer in the Palestinian West Bank and olive trees are a common target of settler violence. According to
OCHA roughly 10,000 Palestinian West Bank olive trees and saplings have suffered either uprooting or damage from Israeli attacks in 2013, a rise from about 8,500 trees damaged in 2012. B'Tselem alleges that "olive pickers in areas near certain settlements and outposts in the West Bank have been a target of attacks by settlers, who have cut down and burned olive trees and stolen the crops", and that "security forces have not taken suitable action to prevent the violence". The IDF barred olive picking in extensive areas of land, stating that the closures were to protect the olive pickers. The case went to the
Israeli High Court in 2006 which found that, as a rule, lands are not to be closed because of settler violence, and that the IDF must enforce the law. According to B'Tselem the IDF has worked around this by saying the lands are closed to protect the settlers. Amnesty International has said that scores of Palestinian-owned sheep as well as gazelles and other animals were poisoned with
fluoracetamide near Tuwani on 22 March 2005, depriving Palestinian farmers of their livelihood. In July 2009, a group of Israeli settlers riding horses and carrying torches raided Palestinian areas, burning 1,500–2,000 olive trees and stoning cars. In March 2011, two EU heads-of-mission reports detailed a tripling of violent settler attacks over three years. The report found that the attacks were especially aimed at Palestinian farmers and their livelihood in a systematic campaign of violence and intimidation which included the destruction of over 10,000 olive trees in the preceding year. The report noted that the Israeli state had "so far failed to effectively protect the Palestinian population". In the 2023 olive harvest season, Yesh Din reported 113 attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank that disrupted olive harvest. The attacks caused 96,000
dunams of olive-planted land to go unharvested last year, resulting in approximately in losses. According to Ghassan Al-Saher, a member of the Qaryut village council, approximately 1,340 olive trees were slashed by settlers in
Qaryut in 2024. According to Yesh Din, 97.4% of complaints submitted to Israeli police by Palestinians who had suffered damage to their olive groves between 2005 and 2013 were closed without indictment. In October 2025, Afaf Abu Alia, a Palestinian woman, was beaten unconscious by an Israeli settler while harvesting olives, resulting in her being hospitalised. The attack was recorded by American journalist
Jasper Nathaniel. In the same incident, Nathaniel was attacked by several Israeli settlers, forcing him to flee. Nathaniel stated the IDF troops stationed in the area had abandoned him and the Palestinians to the settlers, despite having warned the IDF that they feared for their safety.
Well contamination and water access vandalism, September 2024 On 13 July 2004, residents of Hirbat Atwana near Hebron found rotting chicken carcasses in their well after four Jewish settlers were seen in the village. Israeli police said they suspected militant Jews from a nearby settlement outpost called Havat Maon. Settlers blamed the action on "internal tribal fight between the Palestinians;" Israeli police spokesman Doron Ben-Amo said it was "unlikely" that the Palestinians would contaminate their own well. On 9 December 2007, members of
Christian Peacemaker Teams, an American NGO, reported to have observed a group of Israelis stop next to a cistern in Humra Valley, open the lid, and raise the bucket. The water was later found to be contaminated.
Oxfam, a British NGO, has reported that settlers deliberately poisoned the only well in
Madama, a village near
Nablus, by dumping used diapers into it; and that they shot aid workers who came to clean the well. A United Nations survey released in March 2012 documented the increasing use of threats, violence and intimidation to deny Palestinians access to their water resources in the West Bank. The survey stated that Israeli settlers have been acting systematically to gain control of some 56 springs, most of which are located on private Palestinian land. The report noted that settler actions included "trespass, intimidation and physical assault, stealing of private property, and construction without a building permit". The report criticized the Israeli authorities for having "systematically failed to enforce the law on those responsible for these acts and to provide Palestinians with any effective remedy".
Civilian casualties by Israeli settler on July 28, 2025
OCHA reported, from 1 January to 19 September 2023, Israeli settlers and forces killed 189 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and wounded 8,192. OCHA also said on average, there are three cases of settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank of the Jordan River every day, resulting in the killing and injuring of Palestinians, harming their property, and preventing them from reaching their land, workplace, family, and friends. It was reported by the
United Nations in March 2026, that since March 1 and the start of the
US-Israel war with Iran six Palestinians had been killed by settlers. In January 2010, Israeli security officers raided the settlement of
Yitzhar, forcibly entered the settlement's synagogue and
yeshiva buildings and arrested ten settlers, including the
Rosh yeshiva, for alleged involvement in the mosque attack. All were released by the court due to lack of evidence and the court reprimanded the police for arresting the rabbi. As of January 2010, no indictments were served. The state has appealed the ruling. In September 2011, the
Al-Nurayn Mosque in
Qusra became the subject of an
arson attack allegedly perpetrated by militant Jewish settlers, who set the mosque on fire by throwing two burning tyres through its windows. Slogans in
Hebrew threatening further attacks had been
graffitied on the walls, reading "Muhammad is a Pig". A
star of David had also been graffitied alongside. The attack came hours after Israeli police dismantled three structures in the nearby illegal Jewish settlement of
Migron, leading newspapers to suggest that it may have been carried out by settlers in retaliation. Israeli police say the incident does not match previous ‘price tag’ attacks, and that a full investigation was impossible because they were denied entry to the village by Palestinian authorities. According to
Haaretz journalist Chaim Levinson, it was the 10th such mosque subject to arson in Israel and the West Bank since June 2011, and no investigation has ever led to an indictment. Settler violence has impeded Palestinians from visiting holy sites and worshipping at their mosques, and have interfered with muezzin calls for daily prayer.
Attacks on churches and monasteries The growing ascendency of the right-wing in politics over the past decades has led to increasing attacks on non-Jewish religious properties, associated with "price tag" attacks by settlers and their sympathizers, with a rise in attacks on churches throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem, extending even to Israel.
The Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and all Palestine,
Theophilos III has decried, "repeated" attacks on Christian and Muslim places of worship in the Palestinian territories by extremist Jewish settlers. Christians who have suffered such abuses often charge Israeli authorities with "not doing enough" to safeguard the population and prevent further attacks by Jews. Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset
Ayman Odeh observes, "Harassment and harming of places that are holy to Islam and Christianity have become almost constant, and no one is held accountable", and directly blames the Israeli government for "leading the hatred and approving, with a wink, the continuation of the hate crimes against the Arab minority in the state".
Settler claims of orchestrated vandalism A settler group named Tazpit Unit claimed to have documented Palestinians destroying trees with the intention of blaming settlers for the destruction. Photos taken by the group allegedly show Palestinians and left-wing activists cutting down Palestinian olive trees using an electric saw. The settlers stated that many of the reported "price tag" operations by settlers were actually carried out by Palestinians with the aim of tarnishing the settlers' image. Israeli settlers were accused by an Arab farmer of having gathered his sheep into an area thick with brush and setting fire to the bushes, burning alive his 12 pregnant ewes. The police questioned the farmer's description of religious settlers wearing
skullcaps driving a car on
Sabbath, as Orthodox Jews do not drive on this day. Caroline Glick writing in the
Jerusalem Post reported that the farmer later admitted that he lost control of a brush fire that was responsible for the damage. Israeli media network
Arutz Sheva said this incident exposed the tactic of leftists of accepting Arab claims and falsely accusing Jews. In March 2012, two Arab males of Beit Zarzir confessed, after being arrested, to damaging a local school for Arab and Jewish students. They admitted responsibility for having sprayed on the wall of the school, "
Death to Arabs". The school was sprayed twice in February with the slogans "price tag", "Death to Arabs", and "Holocaust to the Arabs". ==Settler extremism==