Watch what’s happening in Gaza, but keep one eye on the West Bank – Israel has Palestinians there in its crosshairs too, and covets the land for itself.
by Kathryn Shihadah
While all eyes are understandably focused on Gaza, Israel is wreaking havoc in the occupied West Bank at a startling pace. What follows is a sampling of headlines from just one day – Thursday, May 15, 2025 – from just one local outlet, the Palestine News and Information Agency (WAFA).
In January 2025, Israel launched a military operation in the West Bank it dubbed “Iron Wall,” in which forces terrorized Palestinians, especially in refugee camps, and destroyed many blocks of homes and infrastructure. It is estimated that 40,000 have been displaced – a large number are now homeless and destitute.
Israel’s extremist leaders have explicitly declared their designs on the West Bank again and again, making clear that all the land “from the river to the sea” is to be free of Palestinians and populated with Israeli Jews.
Israeli forces operate in the West Bank, as in Gaza, with almost complete impunity. On Thursday, they killed and injured Palestinians, demolished homes, and destroyed property:
Palestinian man injured in attack by Israeli forces west of Salfit
Israeli forces raze large tract of Palestinian land west of Salfit
Israeli forces demolish house where four Palestinians killed in Tubas
Four Palestinian men killed by Israeli forces in Tubas
Israeli forces demolish Palestinian house south of Nablus
Palestinian man injured by Israeli occupation forces’ bullets in Qalqilya
In the month of April 2025, Israeli forces in the West Bank killed 16 Palestinians – 11 of them civilians, including 6 children and a woman. Two Palestinians also died in Israeli jails.
Since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October, 2023 – which prompted a spike in violence against West Bank Palestinians – at least 978 Palestinians have been killed, mostly by Israeli forces. Nearly 200 were children.
Also in April, the Israeli military, and in some cases Israeli settlers (some prefer the word “colonist”), demolished 138 structures in the West Bank: 56 houses were completely demolished, most under the pretext of unlicensed construction – a highly discriminatory practice to which Israel has admitted; 3 houses were demolished as part of Israel’s illegal collective punishment policy; and 3 were self-demolished by the Palestinian owners.
April also saw Israeli forces demolish 82 commercial facilities and confiscated properties, and raze lands planted with olive trees. As Saad Dagher, a Palestinian agronomist in the West Bank, has pointed out, “Approximately one million olive trees, many of which were centuries old, have been uprooted by Israel since 1967.”
The destruction of olive trees has a significant impact on Palestine’s already struggling economy.
In addition to Israeli military brutality, Israeli settlers – who live illegally in the occupied West Bank – routinely unleash violence on Palestinians too. Here are some headlines from May 15 alone:
Armed Israeli colonists attack Palestinian vehicles, block roads south of Hebron
Israeli colonists storm Bedouin community near Jericho
Colonists torch bulldozer in central West Bank amid ongoing land clearing
Israeli colonists hurl stones towards Palestinian-owned vehicles near Nablus
In April, Israeli settlers carried out at least 15 attacks against Palestinians and their property across the West Bank. They shot at and beat Palestinians, burned, demolished, and defaced property, and destroyed farmers’ means of livelihood – including stealing and killing sheep.
In the first 15 months since October 7th, 2023, Israeli settlers carried out at least 1,860 attacks against Palestinians.
Then there was the May 15 incident in which both settlers and Israeli forces went after Palestinians:
Israeli forces shoot young man, detain woman amid colonist attack in Al-Mughayyir
Such collaboration between law-breaking settlers and Israeli forces is common.
The Associated Press, a news services that has been known for its pro-Israel bias, reported on an incident in March, in which “[O]ver a dozen Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian village…beating residents with sticks and rocks, in an incident captured with rare clarity by security cameras.
“The video obtained by AP and testimonies from Palestinian witnesses appeared to conflict with the account of the attack provided by Israeli police and military, who arrested over 20 Palestinians afterwards” [emphasis added].
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International documented a recent, particularly violent spate of settler attacks against Palestinians with Israeli military backing.
This settler violence can also be traced to the highest government officials in the land – one example of incitement happened last week (this minister is himself a settler):
Far-right Israeli minister calls for destroying more villages in the West Bank
Bottom line: Palestinians of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are far from safe from Israel’s violence. Compared to what’s happening in Gaza, their struggle may be more subtle, the destruction more gradual – but it is real, and like Gaza, will not end until either the Palestinians are erased or the global community puts a stop to Israel’s genocidal violence.
Kathryn Shihadah is an editor and staff writer for If Americans Knew.
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