Israel tightens its grip on the West Bank
Israeli heavy machinery demolishes a building, during an Israeli raid in Tammoun, near Tubas, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, 15 May 2025. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta
As the war rages in Gaza, Israel has also accelerated its annexation of the West Bank. With demolitions, settler violence and mass displacement, observers warn the campaign risks redrawing borders and breaking international law.
The war in Gaza isn’t the only front burning. Israel’s far-right government is carving up the West Bank with bullets and bulldozers, actions the country’s settler movement has long advocated for. But analysts say the campaign violates international law and could ignite broader unrest.
In January, Israel launched its ‘Iron Wall’ operation in the West Bank on security grounds. In April, the United Nations accused Israel of pursuing a policy of ‘forcible transfer’ of Palestinians in the territory. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that such heavy weapons in civilian areas, mass demolitions and relentless settlement expansion were redrawing the region’s geography and demographics, amounting to de facto annexation.
The UN Human Rights Office reported that the number of displaced Palestinians, particularly from Jenin and Tulkarm, has risen to 40,000, a level unseen since Israel seized the territory from Jordan in 1967. The Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said his troops will stay in Palestinian villages for at least a year.
In Masafer Yatta – a cluster of pastoral villages south of Hebron that has become the most explosive flashpoint – Palestinian hamlets are disappearing one by one. Their homes swallowed by bulldozers, often without warning. The sound of warning comes in the form of shots fired at locals who gather to protest. Israel declared the area a ‘firing zone’ and stripped it of all structures deemed illegal. Earlier this month, Israeli media reported that most of the village of Khallet al-Daba was flattened; Israel says the buildings were all built without a permit. The territory is now dotted with newly installed checkpoints and fortified iron gates. No Other Land, which won the Best Documentary Feature award at the 2025 Academy Awards ceremony, focused on the struggle Palestinians face to stay on their land in the region.
Settler violence
Concurrently, settler violence has also surged, with attacks destroying Palestinian farmland, homes and livelihoods. Many displaced families sleep in school classrooms, mosques or makeshift farm shelters, with little hope of return. Around 700,000 Israelis live in settlements that are considered illegal internationally, among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Extremist armed settlers, many of them young people who are collectively known as Hilltop Youth, have reduced centuries-old olive groves to ash, poisoned water sources, taken over homes and shattered storefronts, often under the watch of Israeli soldiers. They frequently trash homes and graffiti Israeli symbols on the walls.
In Huwara, a large town just nine kilometres south of Nablus that is surrounded by four Israeli communities, settlers set fire to dozens of homes and vehicles in February 2023, while troops – many of whom are also settlers – looked on, according to Israeli rights group Yesh Din. Prosecutions remain rare, blurring the line between settler and state actions.
‘In the current government, open support for Hilltop Youth has increased,’ wrote Neomi Neumann in an analysis for the pro-Israel think tank The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Neumann has served as head of research at Shin Bet – the Israel Security Agency –and with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ‘The current war in Gaza appears to have emboldened these groups even further,’ she writes. ‘They have become increasingly aggressive, determined to drive more Palestinians from their homes, farmlands, grazing areas, and businesses.’
Now with Gaza in flames and Israel’s campaign in the West Bank in full swing, the question is no longer whether the status quo will hold, but what will endure when the dust settles
Israeli officials say their military campaign aims to dismantle militant networks and prevent future terrorist attacks. They describe evacuations as temporary security measures, necessary to establish protective buffer zones for Israeli civilians. Officials say that actions comply with domestic and international law, and are proportionate responses to genuine security threats.
However, statements from senior Netanyahu government members suggest strategic objectives extending beyond immediate security needs. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a long-time settlement advocate, has publicly championed annexing the West Bank. At a June 2024 policy conference, he displayed a map eliminating the Green Line, the internationally recognised 1949 Armistice Agreement, while declaring there was no Palestinian sovereignty west of the Jordan River.
The remarks align with Smotrich’s established advocacy for what right-wing factions term ‘Greater Israel’, incorporating the occupied territories. Meanwhile, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir faces mounting criticism that his wartime policies advance the settler movement’s annexation agenda under the guise of counterterrorism operations.
Humanitarian groups say these shifts have severed access to critical infrastructure, cutting many Palestinians off from water wells, hospitals and basic services. Under international law, the transfer of a civilian population into occupied territory is prohibited. Yet Israel has entrenched its presence in the West Bank.
Condemnations
Children react, on the day of an Israeli raid in Tammoun, near Tubas, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, 15 May 2025. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta
The International Criminal Court has opened a probe into potential violations, but progress has been slow, hindered in part by political resistance and diplomatic friction. UN officials have been unequivocal. ‘Israel’s settlement policy, its acts of annexation, and related discriminatory legislation and measures are in breach of international law, as the International Court of Justice has confirmed, and violate Palestinians’ right to self-determination,’ said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk in March.
While the UN and human rights organisations issue condemnations, concrete international action remains limited. The United States persists in providing approximately $3.8bn in annual military assistance to Israel, and the European Union, despite criticising settlement expansion, has refrained from placing diplomatic pressure. Analysts note that right-wing Israeli ministers have grown particularly assertive since the Trump administration relaxed sanctions on violent settlers immediately after coming to office in January. The White House appears supportive too of Israeli territorial claims. Trump has appointed pro-settlement figures like Mike Huckabee as US Ambassador to Israel.
Amid such a surge in violence across the West Bank, there are warnings, even among traditionally pro-Israel analysts. The Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli policy centre, argued unilateral annexation will not only further weaken Israel’s international standing but will hasten a slide towards a single bi-national state, potentially trapping Jews as a minority within Israel and the occupied territories.
Neumann of the Washington Institute says the recent sharp rise in far-right settler attacks, now up roughly 30 per cent in early 2025 compared with the previous year, could lead to diplomatic isolation, costly reallocation of security resources and high risk of Israeli casualties.
Yet the Netanyahu government pushes forward its campaign of military operations, settlement expansion and territorial claims. Now with Gaza in flames and Israel’s campaign in the West Bank in full swing, the question is no longer whether the status quo will hold, but what will endure when the dust settles.
Emad Mekay is a freelance journalist and can be contacted at emad.mekay@int-bar.org