Fidely

Israel is systematically killing, torturing, imprisoning and displacing Palestinians in the West Bank on a vast scale. This is a coordinated assault by the military, police, intelligence services, prison authorities and settler militias, all backed by Israel's legal system. In the past three years, Israel has killed more than 1,100 Palestinians in the West Bank, 240 of them children or teens, and at least 32 Palestinians from the West Bank have died in Israeli detention facilities. The military has repeatedly raided cities, villages and refugee camps, shooting and killing people, destroying homes and infrastructure and carrying out mass arrests. Meanwhile, thousands of settlers have been drafted into military units, authorized to carry weapons and granted official powers, while the state gives them free rein and military backing. Since October 2023, settlers have killed 35 Palestinians in the West Bank. In the first half of 2026 alone, more than 1,020 attacks against Palestinians were documented, averaging more than five a day. On the ground, the line between “settler” and “soldier” is increasingly disappearing. Israeli soldiers, settlers and police officers are almost never held accountable for harming Palestinians. They are protected by a system that shields them from accountability and grants them effective impunity – not as an oversight, but as part of the system. This violence affects more than the direct victims: it holds an entire society in a state of constant fear. Every day, 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank know that armed soldiers and settlers may enter their homes at any moment, while stepping outside is a calculated risk with checkpoints popping up unannounced and the threat of arbitrary violence is ever present. The fear is not an unexpected byproduct of the violence: it is a deliberate means of control. Intimidating an entire people is one arm of the Elimination Project: Israel's ongoing effort to dismantle the conditions that allow Palestinians to exist as a collective in the West Bank, while cementing Jewish supremacy and control over the land. Read more in our new report, "The Elimination Project". btselem.org/the_elimination_…