After three years of increased Jewish extremist violence against Palestinians, is the recent police campaign that started around a month ago finally turning the tide?
Of course, the Jewish extremist violence is not taking place in a vacuum.
Palestinian terrorists started to escalate violence against Israel in March 2022, leading to an 18-month on-and-off operation of nightly raids against the terrorists by the IDF.
This terrorism metastasized after October 7, leading to a much heavier crackdown from Israel, including the IDF destroying portions of refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur al-Shams.
The IDF has also kept forces semi-permanently occupying portions of those Palestinian areas and used an unprecedented number of airstrikes in the West Bank, changing the face of the area in the most dramatic way since the end of the Second Intifada in 2005.
But this has only dampened, not eliminated Palestinian terrorism. Jewish extremists have not left responding to Palestinian terrorism just to the IDF. They have been taking matters into their own hands, starting with Huwara.
In February 2023, dozens or more of extremist Jews burned large swaths of Palestinian property in Huwara in the West Bank, wounded several Palestinians, and killed at least one Palestinian.
Then IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Herzi Halevi publicly apologized for failing to react fast enough to protect Palestinians. He said the military would preemptively beef up to be ready for future potential reactions by Jewish extremists to the killing of Jews in the West Bank by Palestinians.
Despite his promise, both later in his era and in the era of his successor, Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, and during the era of OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Bluth, attacks by Jews on Palestinians or their property has spiked to untold higher numbers, including the opening of 967 police cases in 2025.
Around a month ago, there were 29 incidents in one week alone, although only six were considered “grave,” according to the police.
Against this backdrop, Defense Minister Israel Katz cut back Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) efforts to combat the issue by ending administrative detention of Jewish extremists in January.
He has stuck to that position even after the IDF and the police repeatedly complained that they did not have the tools to combat the estimated 200 to 300 well-coordinated violent Jewish extremists regularly attacking Palestinians and their property.
Part of the problem since early 2023 has been National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has done all he could to thwart police efforts to rein in Jewish extremist violence, sometimes allegedly overtly pressuring police commanders into investing less time and energy into the problem.
After ignoring the issue for most of the last three years, however, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may finally have taken it more into his own hands, circumventing Ben-Gvir, together with Israel Police Insp.-Gen. Daniel Levi and West Bank Cmdr. Moshe Finchi.
In mid-November, around 100 Jewish “anarchists” – as they were labeled by Bluth – attacked a Palestinian village and areas around Beit Lid.
Ninety-four of the Jewish attackers – who set fire to Palestinian vehicles and trucks, a factory and agricultural land near Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, and wounded four Palestinians – got away scot-free from the start.
Only one of the attackers out of the six of those detained remained in police custody the day after the mass attack.
This attack and the condemnations of it – not only by Zamir, but also by US Secretary of State Marc Rubio – seem to have finally rallied Netanyahu, who made a rare condemnation of the Jewish violence at a cabinet meeting days after the incident.
A special unit targeting Jewish extremists
Subsequently, Finchi was empowered to establish a special unit targeting the Jewish extremists. Yediot Aharonot first reported on the new unit.
According to data from the new unit, in the first four weeks of its operation, it has brought down the 29 incidents in one week to 12, and the six grave incidents to two.
This represented a 58% general decrease in incidents and a 67% decrease in grave incidents, the police reported.
The drop in incidents is not happenstance or luck, but rather has come after a sustained comprehensive campaign by the new unit, including proactively seeking out Jewish extremists to detain them for interrogation before or in between incidents, even if they are not caught at the scene of a crime, police sources said.
In the legal realm, the police said the new unit had opened 121 cases in only a month, leading to the arrest of 21 suspects, six indictments, and two detainees being held in detention until the end of their trials.
Furthermore, the police said eight Jewish extremists have been brought in for questioning for entering the West Bank in violation of restraining orders against them. Vaguely, the police said 24 Jewish extremists have been “dealt with,” which is likely a reference to delivering them some informal warnings, as the Shin Bet once did.
Even before the new unit began operating, the police said indictments against Jewish extremists had jumped from 24 in 2024 to 61 in 2025.
Likewise, 441 Jewish extremists have been interrogated in 2025, compared with 260 in 2024.
In that respect, it is also worth noting that Ben-Gvir was not a minister for multiple months in 2025, during which Levi may have started to reverse course in cracking down somewhat more on Jewish extremist violence against Palestinians.
There are lots of improved statistics, but ultimately, only six indictments have been issued out of an estimated 200 to 300 violent extremists.
Netanyahu helped Levi and Finchi circumvent Ben-Gvir, but will he continue to do so if he feels the US is not watching the West Bank as attentively?
What can be said is that the police have made their first sustained progress on the issue in years, and that only a continuation and escalation of a similar seriousness on the issue has a chance to truly change the picture.