As Netanyahu Prepares to Meet Trump, Explosion of Israeli Settler Violence Draws International Condemnation
“Governments need to act urgently so that the Israeli government does not continue to act as if it has a green light to commit further atrocities,” said a researcher at Human Rights Watch.
A young Palestinian boy is seen at a mosque allegedly burned by Israeli settlers in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on July 26, 2026.
(Photo by John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images)
Stephen Prager
Jul 27, 2026
“Governments need to act urgently so that the Israeli government does not continue to act as if it has a green light to commit further atrocities,” said a researcher at Human Rights Watch.
A young Palestinian boy is seen at a mosque allegedly burned by Israeli settlers in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on July 26, 2026.
(Photo by John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images)
Stephen Prager
Jul 27, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to meet with US President Donald Trump this week, Israeli soldiers stormed into several villages across the occupied West Bank on Monday, expanding a rolling campaign of violence waged by illegal settlers in recent days.
Over the weekend, armed settlers rampaged across more than a dozen Palestinian communities, torching homes and farmland, vandalizing buildings and cars, and burning a pair of mosques in Qusra and Kour.
They were acts of retaliation after two armed Israelis were killed while helping dozens of settlers carry out what Palestinian physician and political leader Mustafa Barghouti described as a “terrorist attack” in the village of Tell, near Nablus in the northern West Bank. That assault killed four Palestinians.
Tell was one of dozens of Palestinian communities to be attacked in recent weeks as part of a campaign of escalating settler violence egged on by the Israeli government as it seeks to cement total control over the West Bank.
More than 150 settler attacks involving killings or property damage have been documented in the West Bank so far this month, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
The Palestinian Health Ministry reports that 21 Palestinians have been killed by settlers this year, already more than were killed in all of 2025.
While the Israeli military has said it was working with police to investigate the desecration of the two mosques, which were burned and spray-painted with graffiti calling for “revenge” and “blood,” settlers have almost never faced accountability in Israeli courts.
This weekend’s violence, meanwhile, has been openly egged on by members of Netanyahu’s government, which ordered more troops into the territory, where they have raided over 20 towns as of Monday morning.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an architect of Israel’s accelerating settlement construction, said Tell should “look like the refugee camps in Nablus and Tulkarem,” referring to West Bank villages devastated by Israeli home demolitions that displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians last year.
Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said the town should be treated like the village of Beit Hanoun in Gaza, which has largely been reduced to rubble by Israeli attacks. He also said he’d demand that Israel bomb and bulldoze Palestinian homes.
The military said it arrested at least 130 Palestinians across the West Bank over the weekend, while just two Israeli settlers tied to extremist violence have been arrested, with no details released about charges or what attack they were involved in.
Nida Ibrahim, a reporter for Al Jazeera, said on Monday this was typical: “Israeli settlers continue their attacks against Palestinians, mostly in their homes, at night, intimidating them. And what happens is that usually Israeli forces would come in and instead of curbing these settlers, they would conduct arrests in the occupied West Bank among Palestinians.”
She said Palestinians felt like they had “no one to protect them,” while “the Israeli settlers have the support of the Israeli army and have the impunity to continue attacking Palestinians without any accountability.”
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, an Israeli analyst who specializes in settlement policy, argued that settlers’ confrontations with Palestinians were meant to provoke retaliation and a military response that allows them to deepen Israeli control of the territory.
“What everyone needs to understand is that the settlers in the West Bank intentionally cause these violent confrontations,” Ben-Ephraim wrote on social media. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, the Palestinian victims don’t even react. Then in the 1% when they do, the IDF treats it as terrorism and starts killing and arresting the victims and giving the land to the settlers.”
“This is a method,” he said. “It will not stop until there is nothing left.”
This weekend’s escalation was met with renewed international outcry from governments and human rights groups who demanded accountability for illegal settlers and the officials enabling them.
Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories, described the ongoing attacks against Palestinians as “pogroms against defenseless civilians.”
Sarah Sanbar, an Israel-Palestine researcher for Human Rights Watch, said this weekend’s conflagration occurred because “the Israeli government didn’t prevent the settler attacks on Tell village, so now it needs to stop settler reprisals and escalating military action that will make a bad situation worse.”
She added that “governments need to act urgently so that the Israeli government does not continue to act as if it has a green light to commit further atrocities.”
Jordan’s foreign ministry condemned the “escalating settler terrorism” in the West Bank, while the state of Qatar said the attacks were a “flagrant violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions.”
The European Union issued a more muted statement, without naming Israel or mentioning the involvement of illegal settlers and instead calling on “all parties to avoid inflammatory language.”
Spain, meanwhile, was much more direct, calling out “violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers, who continue to act with impunity” and calling on Israel to “reverse its policies of settlement expansion and of shielding settler violence.”
As of Monday morning, the Trump administration has remained silent on the violent events of the past weekend, beyond a generic State Department statement condemning violence “by any party.”
This is consistent with its policy of unrestrained military support for Israel and legitimation of its project to settle occupied Palestine in violation of international law.
Nabil Fahmy, the secretary general of the Arab League, urged Trump to push Netanyahu this week to restrain “the Israeli government’s extremist ambitions,” including its implementation of a “de facto annexation in the West Bank.”
Nearly 600 Israeli military, police, and intelligence officials with the group Commanders for Israel Security likewise urged Trump to pressure Netanyahu to rein in the violence, saying it was in the interest of US and Israeli security.
“Unless arrested swiftly and decisively, escalating violence in the West Bank is poised to ignite the region and carries severe ramifications for both Israeli security and US regional interests,” wrote former IDF Chief of Staff, Retired Maj. Gen. Matan Vilnai in an open letter sent to the president on Monday. “It is no secret that certain members of our current government orchestrate much of this chaos, including by shielding their followers—who are armed and driven by messianic impulses—from the law and its enforcement.”
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to meet with US President Donald Trump this week, Israeli soldiers stormed into several villages across the occupied West Bank on Monday, expanding a rolling campaign of violence waged by illegal settlers in recent days.
Over the weekend, armed settlers rampaged across more than a dozen Palestinian communities, torching homes and farmland, vandalizing buildings and cars, and burning a pair of mosques in Qusra and Kour.
They were acts of retaliation after two armed Israelis were killed while helping dozens of settlers carry out what Palestinian physician and political leader Mustafa Barghouti described as a “terrorist attack” in the village of Tell, near Nablus in the northern West Bank. That assault killed four Palestinians.
Tell was one of dozens of Palestinian communities to be attacked in recent weeks as part of a campaign of escalating settler violence egged on by the Israeli government as it seeks to cement total control over the West Bank.
More than 150 settler attacks involving killings or property damage have been documented in the West Bank so far this month, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
The Palestinian Health Ministry reports that 21 Palestinians have been killed by settlers this year, already more than were killed in all of 2025.
While the Israeli military has said it was working with police to investigate the desecration of the two mosques, which were burned and spray-painted with graffiti calling for “revenge” and “blood,” settlers have almost never faced accountability in Israeli courts.
This weekend’s violence, meanwhile, has been openly egged on by members of Netanyahu’s government, which ordered more troops into the territory, where they have raided over 20 towns as of Monday morning.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an architect of Israel’s accelerating settlement construction, said Tell should “look like the refugee camps in Nablus and Tulkarem,” referring to West Bank villages devastated by Israeli home demolitions that displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians last year.
Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said the town should be treated like the village of Beit Hanoun in Gaza, which has largely been reduced to rubble by Israeli attacks. He also said he’d demand that Israel bomb and bulldoze Palestinian homes.
The military said it arrested at least 130 Palestinians across the West Bank over the weekend, while just two Israeli settlers tied to extremist violence have been arrested, with no details released about charges or what attack they were involved in.
Nida Ibrahim, a reporter for Al Jazeera, said on Monday this was typical: “Israeli settlers continue their attacks against Palestinians, mostly in their homes, at night, intimidating them. And what happens is that usually Israeli forces would come in and instead of curbing these settlers, they would conduct arrests in the occupied West Bank among Palestinians.”
She said Palestinians felt like they had “no one to protect them,” while “the Israeli settlers have the support of the Israeli army and have the impunity to continue attacking Palestinians without any accountability.”
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, an Israeli analyst who specializes in settlement policy, argued that settlers’ confrontations with Palestinians were meant to provoke retaliation and a military response that allows them to deepen Israeli control of the territory.
“What everyone needs to understand is that the settlers in the West Bank intentionally cause these violent confrontations,” Ben-Ephraim wrote on social media. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, the Palestinian victims don’t even react. Then in the 1% when they do, the IDF treats it as terrorism and starts killing and arresting the victims and giving the land to the settlers.”
“This is a method,” he said. “It will not stop until there is nothing left.”
This weekend’s escalation was met with renewed international outcry from governments and human rights groups who demanded accountability for illegal settlers and the officials enabling them.
Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories, described the ongoing attacks against Palestinians as “pogroms against defenseless civilians.”
Sarah Sanbar, an Israel-Palestine researcher for Human Rights Watch, said this weekend’s conflagration occurred because “the Israeli government didn’t prevent the settler attacks on Tell village, so now it needs to stop settler reprisals and escalating military action that will make a bad situation worse.”
She added that “governments need to act urgently so that the Israeli government does not continue to act as if it has a green light to commit further atrocities.”
Jordan’s foreign ministry condemned the “escalating settler terrorism” in the West Bank, while the state of Qatar said the attacks were a “flagrant violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions.”
The European Union issued a more muted statement, without naming Israel or mentioning the involvement of illegal settlers and instead calling on “all parties to avoid inflammatory language.”
Spain, meanwhile, was much more direct, calling out “violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers, who continue to act with impunity” and calling on Israel to “reverse its policies of settlement expansion and of shielding settler violence.”
As of Monday morning, the Trump administration has remained silent on the violent events of the past weekend, beyond a generic State Department statement condemning violence “by any party.”
This is consistent with its policy of unrestrained military support for Israel and legitimation of its project to settle occupied Palestine in violation of international law.
Nabil Fahmy, the secretary general of the Arab League, urged Trump to push Netanyahu this week to restrain “the Israeli government’s extremist ambitions,” including its implementation of a “de facto annexation in the West Bank.”
Nearly 600 Israeli military, police, and intelligence officials with the group Commanders for Israel Security likewise urged Trump to pressure Netanyahu to rein in the violence, saying it was in the interest of US and Israeli security.
“Unless arrested swiftly and decisively, escalating violence in the West Bank is poised to ignite the region and carries severe ramifications for both Israeli security and US regional interests,” wrote former IDF Chief of Staff, Retired Maj. Gen. Matan Vilnai in an open letter sent to the president on Monday. “It is no secret that certain members of our current government orchestrate much of this chaos, including by shielding their followers—who are armed and driven by messianic impulses—from the law and its enforcement.”
As Zionists-cum-Israelis have used violence and dispossession for well over a century in attempts to drive Palestinians out of Palestine, do they really think that they will ever fully succeed?
Palestinians take to the streets to resist as Israelis raid the town of Sarra, under the protection of the Israeli army, in Nablus, West Bank, Palestine on July 24, 2026.
(Photo by Issam Rimawi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Peter F. Crowley
Jul 27, 2026
Common Dreams
It would seem that the Israeli settlers are out of control. Their violent actions have either been encouraged by the Israel Defense Forces or Israeli government, or protected by the former and quietly supported by the latter. This support exists as they set homes on fire, attack Palestinian residents, and destroy their olive trees in the West Bank. Such terrorist activity is rarely penalized in the country’s justice system because the state supports the policy of mass expulsion of the Palestinians from the West Bank.
Last Friday in Tal, four Palestinians and two Israelis were killed after there was an ISIS-like incursion into the Palestinian village. A Palestinian living in one of the attacked homes grabbed a settler’s rifle and shot two Israelis before being killed by the IDF. In response to this act of self-defense, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has advocated for turning the West Bank into Beit Hanoun, a city in Gaza that Israel destroyed during its genocide. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for “intensive counterterrorism operation[s]” and for settler outposts to expand in the West Bank.
The ISIS-KKK-like terrorist settlers reacted by torching mosques and setting fire to homes in villages, attacking an ambulance transporting a patient, and firing live ammunition at Palestinian residents. This comes on the heels of Israeli settlers detaining US Rep. and 2028 presidential hopeful Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in early July when he visited a Palestinian village that had been destroyed by settlers.
In the wider context, Israeli settlers and the IDF have killed nearly 1,200 Palestinians, including 250 children, in the West Bank since the genocidal war on Gaza after October 7. Making matters worse, Israeli terroristic violence by settlers has increased by 63% in the first half of 2026 compared with the second half of 2025. They may seem unhinged, but it is the far-right government that has fueled this level of violence.
The appearance of the Israeli settlers being out of control is a sleight of hand. They are working, like the KKK did under state governments in the American South, under the auspices of the Israeli government.
With horror, in the ashes of the failed Iraq War, ISIS drove masses of people from their homes across wide swaths of Iraq and Syria during the mid-2010s in the hope of reestablishing an Islamic state that was far more brutal than any Islamic caliphate throughout history. The creation of Israel was similar, in the hope of establishing a long-lost Jewish state in historic Palestine via ethnic cleansing of roughly 750,000 people. Both ISIS and Zionist-Israeli forces and settlers have, over time, driven millions of residents from their homes using genocide, terror, and mass murder to recapture an imagined past. ISIS was defeated thanks to Iran, the United States, Syria, and Iraqi forces working together. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Israeli version of ISIS reawakened from its post-Nakba lull, but at a slower pace until the 21st century. It was in this century that we have seen vast, state-backed settler expansion, land theft, and the destruction of Palestinian livelihoods, usually under the approving eyes of the IDF and the Israeli government. We have also seen over 73,000 Gazans killed by the IDF in the past three years during the genocidal war; the dead were mostly civilian, including about 21,000 children. Now the Israeli army, reneging on ceasefire terms, controls 70% of the Gaza Strip and already has plans for three Israeli settlements in Gaza where 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced.
But as Zionists-cum-Israelis have used violence and dispossession for well over a century in attempts to drive Palestinians out of Palestine, do they really think that they will ever fully succeed? They certainly have the US superpower’s blessing.
Yet the people of Palestine have time and perseverance on their side. They have a history that has seen the Assyrian, Babylonian, Roman, and Greek empires come and go. They have seen the uncouth Crusaders’ relatively brief attempt to occupy the Holy Land. They’ve borne witness to the Byzantine, Umayyad, and Abbasid regimes. But they are still resisting in Gaza and the West Bank.
The appearance of the Israeli settlers being out of control is a sleight of hand. They are working, like the KKK did under state governments in the American South, under the auspices of the Israeli government’s goal of annexing and depopulating the West Bank of its Indigenous Palestinians.
However, they will not succeed.
The Palestinians have resilience and justice on their side. They have the support of people around the world, particularly in developing countries, and increasingly in Europe and even the United States. For example, this month Democrats in Congress followed the will of the American people and voted overwhelmingly to block military assistance to Israel.
This is only a start.
Despite the odds, Palestinians have always shown courageous resilience during famine, genocide, and land theft. Having more international support will ensure that they are not removed from their land.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Peter F. Crowley
As a prolific author from the Boston area, Peter F. Crowley writes in various forms, including short fiction, op-eds, poetry, and academic essays. His writing can be found in Pif Magazine, New Verse News, Counterpunch, Middle East Monitor, Galway Review, Digging the Fat, Adelaide’s Short Story and Poetry Award anthologies (finalist in both), and The Opiate. He is the author of the poetry books Those Who Hold Up the Earth and Empire’s End, and the short fiction collection That Night and Other Stories.
Full Bio >
It would seem that the Israeli settlers are out of control. Their violent actions have either been encouraged by the Israel Defense Forces or Israeli government, or protected by the former and quietly supported by the latter. This support exists as they set homes on fire, attack Palestinian residents, and destroy their olive trees in the West Bank. Such terrorist activity is rarely penalized in the country’s justice system because the state supports the policy of mass expulsion of the Palestinians from the West Bank.
Last Friday in Tal, four Palestinians and two Israelis were killed after there was an ISIS-like incursion into the Palestinian village. A Palestinian living in one of the attacked homes grabbed a settler’s rifle and shot two Israelis before being killed by the IDF. In response to this act of self-defense, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has advocated for turning the West Bank into Beit Hanoun, a city in Gaza that Israel destroyed during its genocide. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for “intensive counterterrorism operation[s]” and for settler outposts to expand in the West Bank.
The ISIS-KKK-like terrorist settlers reacted by torching mosques and setting fire to homes in villages, attacking an ambulance transporting a patient, and firing live ammunition at Palestinian residents. This comes on the heels of Israeli settlers detaining US Rep. and 2028 presidential hopeful Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in early July when he visited a Palestinian village that had been destroyed by settlers.
In the wider context, Israeli settlers and the IDF have killed nearly 1,200 Palestinians, including 250 children, in the West Bank since the genocidal war on Gaza after October 7. Making matters worse, Israeli terroristic violence by settlers has increased by 63% in the first half of 2026 compared with the second half of 2025. They may seem unhinged, but it is the far-right government that has fueled this level of violence.
The appearance of the Israeli settlers being out of control is a sleight of hand. They are working, like the KKK did under state governments in the American South, under the auspices of the Israeli government.
With horror, in the ashes of the failed Iraq War, ISIS drove masses of people from their homes across wide swaths of Iraq and Syria during the mid-2010s in the hope of reestablishing an Islamic state that was far more brutal than any Islamic caliphate throughout history. The creation of Israel was similar, in the hope of establishing a long-lost Jewish state in historic Palestine via ethnic cleansing of roughly 750,000 people. Both ISIS and Zionist-Israeli forces and settlers have, over time, driven millions of residents from their homes using genocide, terror, and mass murder to recapture an imagined past. ISIS was defeated thanks to Iran, the United States, Syria, and Iraqi forces working together. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Israeli version of ISIS reawakened from its post-Nakba lull, but at a slower pace until the 21st century. It was in this century that we have seen vast, state-backed settler expansion, land theft, and the destruction of Palestinian livelihoods, usually under the approving eyes of the IDF and the Israeli government. We have also seen over 73,000 Gazans killed by the IDF in the past three years during the genocidal war; the dead were mostly civilian, including about 21,000 children. Now the Israeli army, reneging on ceasefire terms, controls 70% of the Gaza Strip and already has plans for three Israeli settlements in Gaza where 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced.
But as Zionists-cum-Israelis have used violence and dispossession for well over a century in attempts to drive Palestinians out of Palestine, do they really think that they will ever fully succeed? They certainly have the US superpower’s blessing.
Yet the people of Palestine have time and perseverance on their side. They have a history that has seen the Assyrian, Babylonian, Roman, and Greek empires come and go. They have seen the uncouth Crusaders’ relatively brief attempt to occupy the Holy Land. They’ve borne witness to the Byzantine, Umayyad, and Abbasid regimes. But they are still resisting in Gaza and the West Bank.
The appearance of the Israeli settlers being out of control is a sleight of hand. They are working, like the KKK did under state governments in the American South, under the auspices of the Israeli government’s goal of annexing and depopulating the West Bank of its Indigenous Palestinians.
However, they will not succeed.
The Palestinians have resilience and justice on their side. They have the support of people around the world, particularly in developing countries, and increasingly in Europe and even the United States. For example, this month Democrats in Congress followed the will of the American people and voted overwhelmingly to block military assistance to Israel.
This is only a start.
Despite the odds, Palestinians have always shown courageous resilience during famine, genocide, and land theft. Having more international support will ensure that they are not removed from their land.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Peter F. Crowley
As a prolific author from the Boston area, Peter F. Crowley writes in various forms, including short fiction, op-eds, poetry, and academic essays. His writing can be found in Pif Magazine, New Verse News, Counterpunch, Middle East Monitor, Galway Review, Digging the Fat, Adelaide’s Short Story and Poetry Award anthologies (finalist in both), and The Opiate. He is the author of the poetry books Those Who Hold Up the Earth and Empire’s End, and the short fiction collection That Night and Other Stories.
Full Bio >
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