Overview
- The IDF recorded 870 so-called nationalist crimes by settlers last year, a 27 percent increase from the year before, signaling a recent rise in frequency and severity of attacks.
- The army has said it will review the conduct of several soldiers in the West Bank and a military broadcaster reported one soldier arrested on suspicion of burning a Palestinian vehicle, though rights groups say prosecutions are rare.
- Human-rights group B’Tselem reports 22 Bedouin communities were partially or fully driven out last year and about 700 people were forced from their homes in the first months of 2026, leaving families displaced in nearby towns.
- Multiple eyewitness accounts and experts say security forces sometimes fail to stop settler attacks, at times arrest Palestinians instead of settlers, and occasionally appear to join or tolerate violence on the ground.
- Senior ministers’ public moves to expand settlements, including an order to evacuate Chan al-Ahmar, have strengthened settler activity and raise the risk of continued displacement and weak accountability.