Herzog Warns of Civil War as West Bank Violence Rises

President Isaac Herzog warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Israeli officials that rising settler violence and nationalist terrorism in the West Bank could lead to civil war, according to a Channel 12 report cited by i24NEWS. The warning came in letters sent to Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara after Herzog met commanders, soldiers and police officers in the West Bank and heard about increasing violence.

Herzog described soldiers facing “ethical and operational dilemmas that could lead to civil war.” The letter lays out a stark account from within the state’s own security apparatus: soldiers, police and commanders confronting violence that the president called organized criminal activity. It also shows the proposed answer coming from the top. Herzog called for “widespread and administrative detention” to “eradicate the phenomenon.” The report doesn’t specify who would be detained, how many people Herzog had in mind, or what process would govern those detentions.

A warning from the apparatus

Herzog cited elections in the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, along with the harvest season, as events converging to make the situation “particularly dangerous and explosive.” The report doesn’t describe the elections further or say what role they play in the violence. It records Herzog’s warning, not a response from the other officials who received his letters.

His biblical reference supplied the language for the alarm. “In the West Bank, a man will do what is right in his own eyes,” Herzog wrote, citing Judges 17:6: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” He called Jewish nationalist violence a “moral disgrace and stain on us” and “organized criminal activity - organized crime in every sense of the word.” His letter declared, “There is no place for this lawlessness.”

Those words are an unusually direct description from Israel’s president of violence inside the West Bank. But the remedy he names is an expanded use of detention. The report gives no details of an alternative response, nor does it say whether the officials receiving the letters accepted Herzog’s demand. The distinction matters: a warning about lawlessness and a call for more state power appear in the same intervention.

Arrests, with few details

The report also noted ten arrests in West Bank settler attacks following an assault on a Washington Post journalist and European Union diplomats. It does not identify those arrested, describe the alleged attacks, specify when the arrests took place, or say what charges the arrested people face. The figure is concrete; the information around it is limited.

That gap leaves the public account centered on official warnings and enforcement. The report names the president, prime minister, defense minister, chief of staff and attorney general, and records a call for administrative detention. It contains no account from the journalist, the diplomats, the people arrested, or residents affected by the violence. It also offers no details about what commanders, soldiers and police officers told Herzog beyond his statement that they described increasing violence.

What the report leaves out

The Palestinian Authority appears only among the elections Herzog cited. The article gives no account of its security role, arrests, or response, and provides no basis for claims about its conduct in this episode. It also mentions no Hamas officials, aid organizations, human rights groups, grassroots organizers, or joint community actions. There’s no evidence here about who funds NGOs or what they deliver, so those claims can’t be attached to this report.

Herzog warned that failure to resolve the issue would bring disaster and civil war. The letter frames the danger as urgent, but the report does not say what happened after it reached Netanyahu and the other officials. Ten arrests are reported; the proposed use of widespread administrative detention is clear. Whether either measure changes the violence remains unanswered in the account.