UN agency records over 5,330 alleged settler attacks in West Bank since 2023

For these kinds of statistics, OCHA does not distinguish between Israeli Jews who live in the West Bank and those who live within the Green Line, referring to anyone who perpetrates a West Bank attack as a “settler.”

The report said that the Palestinian regions which have been hit hardest by extremist Jewish attacks have been the Ramallah area (1,352), the Nablus area (1,226), and the Hebron area (935), with Jenin and Tulkarm down to 115 and 111, respectively.

OCHA added that 64 West Bank Palestinians “have been killed and 5,173 injured in that context alone by Israeli forces or settlers.”

Within the UN report, there is no apparent distinction between Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists and innocent Palestinian civilians.

The number was still higher than the 155 total in 2022 and the 77 total in 2021.

While the IDF has said that 96% of those killed were terrorists, it has acknowledged that the number of those Palestinians killed who were an imminent threat, such as in a gunfight, dropped in 2025 to 42% from 72% in 2024.

There was an obvious disparity between the IDF and the UN numbers, with possibly the UN only or mostly counting Palestinians killed by non-IDF violent Jewish extremists, though it mentioned Israeli forces in some parts of the report.

The IDF considers Palestinians terrorists if they were caught in a terror scene and resisted arrest, even if it turns out later, after the fog of battle clears, that they were not armed at the time.

In addition, the same would apply to known terrorists who are resisting arrest by fleeing, where the IDF soldiers believe the terrorist will escape if they do not open fire.

In contrast, many human rights groups and most of the world have said that at least some, if not many, of the Palestinians killed in the West Bank could have been avoided had they been arrested or dealt with more delicately in cases where the IDF soldiers on the scene clearly have the upper hand.

But 663 was still far above prior years, with 446 in 2021, 353 in 2020, and 339 in 2019.

The IDF said that Jewish extremist violence against Palestinians had increased correspondingly to increased Palestinian terror, but does not really have an answer yet for bringing down the levels to pre-2022 levels.

IDF officials remain frustrated with their failure to bring down the violence.

The unanimous defense establishment view has been that canceling such administrative detention orders has undermined the ability to contain Jewish extremist violence.

The IDF and Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency) have also slammed the police under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as not sufficiently enforcing the law against such Jewish extremists.

Next, the OCHA report said that more than 5,900 Palestinians have been “displaced due to settler attacks and access restrictions.”

In addition, the UN agency said that “45 communities [have been] displaced fully and 72 partially,” without defining what partially displaced would mean.

SINCE JANUARY 2025, the IDF announced a new policy in which it has occupied whole or significant portions of refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm, Nur al-Shams, Nablus, and Tubas, to prevent terrorists from using those areas as command centers and for organizational purposes.

Prior to those moves, the Palestinian Authority had tried to bring down terror emanating from the Jenin refugee camp, but ultimately was weaker than the local Jenin gangs.

It was unclear exactly how much the report was counting anti-terror IDF actions, or if the report was fully focused on non-IDF actions by violent Jewish extremists.

Finally, the report said that about 77,000 trees and saplings planted by Palestinians and over 2,400 Palestinians vehicles have been damaged.

To date, the IDF has not provided numbers of damaged or destroyed Palestinian trees or cars.

Palestinians and the outlet Haaretz at the time claimed that Bluth did not act only out of narrow security considerations, but also out of some attempt to deter Palestinian terror through collective punishment, citing his statements about making problematic villages pay for the actions of terrorists coming from those villages.

Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken went as far as to call Bluth a “war criminal” whom the International Criminal Court should stop and arrest.

The IDF responded that the massive tree removal took place both in order to catch the terrorist from Al-Mughayir who had recently shot a Jewish Israeli civilian in the head near the Malachi Hashalom area, northeast of Ramallah, as well as to improve the ability of security forces to intercept such terrorists in advance, following multiple incidents along the Alon Corridor roads.

In May 2025, Palestinian terrorists murdered Tzeela Gez, a 30-year-old mother of three, in a drive-by shooting on Route 446 near Peduel junction in the Binyamin region of the West Bank.

That terrorist cell perpetrated a number of terror attacks in the area.

The Palestinian terrorist who murdered 14-year-old Binyamin Ahimeir in April 2024 came from the Al-Mughayir area.

Besides those incidents that are reported and are among the most deadly terror incidents – the Post understands that there has also been – often unreported – regular rock throwing from the area, with the rock throwers often using the trees for cover to approach the road and then escape.

But violent Jewish extremists who are not part of the IDF’s security operations have also ransacked a large number of trees and cars, and it is not clear if the IDF has a handle on those numbers.