Extremist Jewish settlers committed 660 serious attacks in the West Bank during the first half of 2026, a 63 percent increase from 405 incidents in the same period last year, according to security establishment figures reported by Kan public broadcaster. The surge represents a troubling escalation of what Israeli authorities classify as "nationalistic crime" — violence that undermines the rule of law, threatens Israeli security forces, and damages Israel's international standing at a moment when Palestinian terrorism has declined sharply.
The data reveals a dangerous pattern. Palestinian casualties from settler violence climbed to 140 wounded and six killed in the first half of 2026, compared with 82 wounded and none killed during the same period in 2025. Attacks targeting Israeli security forces also rose by 50 percent, with 45 such incidents recorded. The figures didn't include July, when roughly 100 additional incidents of nationalist crime were recorded, according to Kan.
A Cancer Within
Settler violence has been rising in recent years, particularly after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. The number of attacks by settlers against Palestinians and Israeli security forces in the West Bank rose by 27 percent in 2025 compared with 2024, according to data recorded by the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security agency. The attacks occur on a near-daily basis, largely go unchecked, and prosecutions of Jewish extremists are rare while convictions are even rarer, the report said.
Critics have accused the government, described as the most hardline in Israel's history, of shrugging off the attacks. During deliberations on a cabinet plan to combat the issue, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly referred to the violence against Palestinians in the West Bank as a "metastasizing cancer." The cabinet quietly approved the plan in March, which included financial sanctions against violent Israeli hilltop youth, but it wasn't made public because of political considerations, according to Channel 13.
The Security Paradox
The surge in settler violence comes as Palestinian terrorism has declined dramatically. In 2025, 57 Palestinian terror attacks were recorded by the IDF, leading to the deaths of 20 people. Two soldiers were also killed in an attack carried out by a Jordanian at the Allenby Bridge Crossing in September. In 2024, the military counted 258 Palestinian terror attacks with 35 deaths, and in 2023, 847 attacks with 41 deaths.
The army attributed the downward trend in Palestinian attacks to "sustained offensive activity" in areas considered hotspots of terrorism in the West Bank, especially the refugee camps in the north of the territory. The contrast is stark: as the IDF's counterterrorism operations succeed in reducing Palestinian violence, extremist settlers are filling the security vacuum with their own lawlessness, attacking the very security forces who protect them.
Why This Matters:
The surge in settler violence threatens Israel's security from within at precisely the moment when its military operations have achieved measurable success against Palestinian terrorism. The 85 percent drop in Palestinian attacks since 2023 demonstrates that security measures work when applied consistently. But settler extremism undermines that success by provoking Palestinian anger, diverting IDF resources from counterterrorism to policing Jewish radicals, and handing Israel's critics evidence of a two-tier justice system. Netanyahu's private description of the violence as a "metastasizing cancer" acknowledges the threat, but the failure to prosecute attackers suggests political considerations are trumping security imperatives. For a government that came to power promising to restore order and protect Israeli citizens, the inability to enforce the law against Jewish extremists represents a fundamental failure of governance that weakens Israel's moral and strategic position.