(ZENIT News / Tel Aviv, 11.14.2025).- Israeli leaders rarely speak in unison about tensions in the West Bank. Yet on 12 November, a chorus of unusually sharp condemnations from the country’s president and senior military commanders signaled that the latest wave of settler attacks against Palestinians had crossed a threshold Israel can no longer ignore.
President Isaac Herzog, whose office typically embodies restraint rather than rebuke, described the violence as shocking and intolerable. His remarks followed a night of coordinated assaults in the northern West Bank, where masked settlers moved through Palestinian communities, torching vehicles, setting fire to storage facilities, and clashing even with Israeli soldiers who attempted to intervene. For a largely ceremonial president to call out a “red line” underscored just how far the situation has deteriorated.
האירועים הקשים שהתרחשו הערב בשומרון על ידי קומץ אלים ומסוכן מזעזעים וחמורים. אלימות שכזאת כלפי אזרחים וכלפי חיילי צה»ל חוצה קו אדום ואני מגנה אותה בחומרה. על כל גורמי המדינה לפעול בנחרצות למיגור התופעה ולחיזוק לוחמי צה״ל וכוחות הבטחון השומרים עלינו יומם וליל.
— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) November 11, 2025
The military’s top brass delivered equally blunt assessments. Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir warned that a minority of extremist Israelis was staining the country’s reputation and disrupting its security priorities. Major General Avi Bluth, responsible for the Central Command that oversees the West Bank, went further, labeling the perpetrators an anarchic fringe whose actions drain personnel and resources needed for counterterrorism operations. What troubled commanders most was not only the escalation of violence, but the spectacle of settlers attacking troops dispatched to protect Palestinian civilians.
The events of 11 November did not emerge from a vacuum. The past two years—shadowed by the war in Gaza and political tensions inside Israel—have coincided with a dramatic increase in settler assaults. Palestinian farmers, already accustomed to intimidation during the autumn olive harvest, now speak of a shift from sporadic harassment to systematic attacks. Aid agencies have documented alarming patterns: burned groves, destroyed tools, beatings, gunfire, and a mounting sense among Palestinians that neither the army nor the police is willing—or in some cases permitted—to protect them.
International monitors have noticed the trend as well. The United Nations humanitarian office reported that October saw the highest number of settler attacks recorded since the organization began tracking cases in 2006. More than 260 incidents were logged that month alone. Rights groups point to a familiar dynamic: investigations are opened, few lead to indictments, and even fewer to convictions. Israeli organizations that have tracked cases over two decades say that the vast majority end without charges being filed.
What makes the current moment particularly volatile is the political climate in Jerusalem. For years, settler influence has grown inside successive governments; today, two of the most outspoken champions of the settlement enterprise occupy powerful posts. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds an additional ministry overseeing key civilian matters in the West Bank, has openly advocated policies aimed at making Israeli control irreversible. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister who oversees the police, has been a vocal supporter of settlers accused of nationalist violence. Their critics argue that such political backing creates an atmosphere in which extremists believe they can act with impunity.
Across Palestinian villages, the fear is palpable. In Beit Lid, families spoke of sleepless nights and the feeling that their daily routines have become exercises in survival. One resident described the impossibility of assuring his children that they are safe when attacks can erupt without warning. Workers at a dairy processing plant recounted how assailants arrived with fuel canisters and tools to break into the premises, suggesting not a spontaneous raid but a deliberate operation.
Tuesday’s events also produced rare scenes of Israeli police arrests, though the gesture was tempered when three of the four suspects were released the next day. Only a minor remained in custody for further questioning. The incident raised long-standing Palestinian accusations that the justice system treats settler offenders leniently, especially compared to the swift penalties imposed on Palestinians for far lesser infractions.
Meanwhile, images circulated widely of flaming tents in a Bedouin community near Deir Sharaf, olive farmers beaten on the slopes around Beita, and even Israeli peace activists bloodied while trying to support Palestinian harvesters. A Reuters photographer was among those assaulted. Such scenes, once exceptional, have now become an almost weekly feature of life in parts of the territory.
As these tensions intensify, the broader geopolitical picture remains fraught. On the same day Israeli leaders condemned the violence, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged all sides to preserve the fragile ceasefire in Gaza and to push toward negotiations that could eventually support Palestinian self-determination. The contrast between diplomatic appeals and the reality unfolding in rural West Bank communities was stark.
Settlement expansion continues apace, with watchdog groups reporting record numbers of new housing tenders approved this year. For many Palestinians, this expansion, coupled with escalating settler attacks, reinforces a long-held belief that the ultimate goal is to push them off their land through a combination of bureaucratic pressure and outright violence. Palestinian officials have called for international sanctions against groups they accuse of enabling what they describe as a campaign of forced displacement.
Israel now finds itself in a familiar yet increasingly delicate position: condemning settler violence while overseeing a political landscape in which its most ardent proponents hold significant power. Whether this latest round of criticism from the nation’s highest office will translate into sustained enforcement is far from clear. But for those living amid burned orchards and charred vehicles, promises of accountability ring hollow unless matched by decisive action.
The question now facing Israeli authorities is not simply how to contain a small group of extremists, but whether the state can uphold the rule of law in a region where competing ideologies, military realities, and human fears collide daily—and where every unpunished attack deepens a cycle of distrust that grows harder to break.
Thank you for reading our content. If you would like to receive ZENIT’s daily e-mail news, you can subscribe for free through this link.
