Largely overlooked by the international community, the displacement of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank

By The Immigrant Times

During the first half of 2026, thousands of Palestinians, whose families have lived in the West Bank (Mandatory Palestine) for many years before the State of Israel was created, were forced to leave their homes and land. (Photo: A member of Médecins Sans Frontières inspects a Palestinian home destroyed by Israeli forces; Palestinian farmers abandon their land; Olive trees cut by Israeli settlers. Sources: Médecins Sans Frontières and B'Tselem, Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories)

July 2026: On 24 July 2026, a confrontation near the Israeli West Bank settlement of Havat Gilad and the neighbouring Palestinian village of Tal resulted in the deaths of four Palestinians and two Israelis.

The Israeli military stated it deployed soldiers following reports of an attack on Israeli hikers. However, Human Rights Watch, citing witnesses and verified video footage, said the clash started after 40 to 50 settlers approached the village and assaulted several homes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a ‘wide-scale military operation’ in response, and Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered additional troop deployments, new checkpoints and expanded counterterrorism operations across the West Bank.

The incident is one example of a pattern that has increased significantly this year. While international attention has been on Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, the occupied West Bank has experienced its highest level of settler violence and displacement since Israel's occupation began in 1967. Palestinian farmers, whose access to land has decreased each year, have borne a disproportionate share of it.

The West Bank

The West Bank is a landlocked area west of the Jordan River, covering 5,660 square kilometres (2,185 square miles), with over 3.3 million Palestinians and approximately 500,000 Israeli settlers. Under the Oslo Accords, the region is divided into three administrative zones: Area A, Area B, and Area C. The figures do not include residents of East Jerusalem.

 Area A: Encompasses about 18% of the territory and is entirely governed by the civil and security authorities of the Palestinian Authority.

 Area B: Covers about 22% of the land under joint Palestinian civil authority and Israeli security control.

 Area C: covers more than 60% of the territory and is entirely under Israeli military and civil control, housing all Israeli settlements.

 Major Cities: Ramallah (de facto capital, estimated population 44,000); Nablus (estimated population 165,000); Hebron (estimated population 210,000); Bethlehem (estimated population 30,000); Jericho (estimated population 24,000).

Thousands of West Bank Palestinians were displaced in the first half of 2026

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 68 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank so far in 2026, with at least 13 of them by settlers, while 20 Israelis have been injured in the same period. UN News reports that settler attacks now account for 55 per cent of Palestinian injuries in the West Bank this year, with the rate of attacks increasing from one every three days in 2020 to more than three per day in 2026.

B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation, recorded that as of 16 March 2026, Israeli authorities had forcibly displaced 59 Palestinian communities, affecting more than 4,000 people. Across Areas B and C, a further 507 residents were forced from 16 partially displaced communities.

The UN's human rights office (OHCHR) states that the pattern remains consistent: an outpost, illegal even under Israeli law, is established near a herding or farming community; settlers restrict access to water and grazing land; attacks on people, property and livestock follow; and the community eventually leaves.

OHCHR recorded 4,037 Palestinians displaced by settler violence across the West Bank since October 2023, including the displacement in 2026 of Ras 'Ein Al 'Auja, until then the largest Bedouin community remaining in the central Jordan Valley.

Save the Children reported in July 2026 that over 1,000 Palestinian children were displaced by settler violence in the first half of 2026 alone, which is half the total recorded across the previous three years combined. The organisation stated that 70 per cent of displaced households mentioned threats to women and children, including the danger of sexual violence, as the primary reason for leaving.

Most displacements have occurred in Area C, which is under full Israeli civil and security control, and in the Jordan Valley. OCHA and OHCHR both note that Area B, which is nominally under Palestinian civil administration, is experiencing a growing number of new outposts and displacements, with four built in Area B in 2025 alone.

Israel cuts farmers off their land

For Palestinian farmers, the pressure is ongoing rather than occasional. Approximately 100,000 Palestinian families rely on olive farming for their livelihood, and the yearly harvest frequently becomes a flashpoint. OCHA recorded 167 settler attacks linked to the 2025 harvest season between 1 October and 10 November, impacting 87 communities and damaging over 5,700 trees, mainly olives. The Land Research Center estimates that more than 52,300 olive trees have been destroyed since October 2023, which is about four per cent of the recorded olive trees in the West Bank.

Access, not just violence, is the key mechanism. Farmers whose land is near settlements or behind the West Bank separation barrier must obtain Israeli military permits to reach it; humanitarian and rights groups, including Yesh Din, report that in several recent seasons, most of these permits were cancelled or the agricultural gates through the barrier remained closed.

In 2023, the UN reported that approximately 96,000 dunums (9,600 hectares) of olive-cultivated land remained unharvested, at an estimated cost of $10 million. Amnesty International reported in June 2026 that Israeli authorities have separately resumed land registration processes in Area C, which treat unregistered land as state land unless Palestinians can meet what the organisation describes as an exceptionally high evidentiary burden of ownership. By the end of February 2026, Israeli authorities had taken control of half the unregistered land in Area C, which constitutes 58 per cent of the West Bank.

The cumulative effect, aid organisations argue, is that farmers who suffer repeated harvest losses, lack access to grazing land or livestock face pressure to abandon farming and move to towns and cities in the West Bank, even when no single violent incident forces them to make this choice.

Israel presses ahead with the expansion of ‘unlawful’ settlements

The status of Israeli settlements in the West Bank was directly addressed by the International Court of Justice in an advisory opinion issued in July 2024, which concluded that Israel's continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful and that its settlement policy breaches international law. The UN General Assembly supported the opinion through a resolution the following September. Israel has rejected the ICJ's findings and argues that the West Bank is disputed rather than occupied territory.

In June 2026, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway imposed coordinated sanctions on individuals and organisations they said were involved in financing or enabling settler violence, citing both the violence and continued settlement expansion.

Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the move; spokesman Oren Marmorstein said the sanctions represented "an attempt to impose a political stance regarding the right of Jews to settle in the Land of Israel... camouflaged as measures against violence." Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced plans during the same period to build 763 new housing units in the Eli settlement, south of Nablus, which is itself unauthorised under Israeli law.

Violence costs Palestinians and Israeli lives

Israeli casualties, although fewer in number, are also part of the record. OCHA reported 20 Israelis injured in West Bank violence by mid-July 2026, and the clash near Tal on 24 July resulted in two Israelis and four Palestinians killed. Israeli officials distinguish between attacks they attribute to Palestinian militants and violence by Israeli settlers, asserting both are being addressed; Haaretz reported in late July 2026 that senior Israeli military officials have separately warned that the government's political leadership is emboldening settler violence rather than restraining it, after settler leaders declined requests to help calm tensions.

More than 500,000 Israelis reside in settlements across the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, according to Israeli government data cited in international reports; an additional estimated 220,000 live in Israeli neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed in a move not recognised internationally. Around three million Palestinians live in the West Bank.

Sources and methodology

This article relies on reporting and data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), UN News, B'Tselem, Save the Children International, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Yesh Din, the Land Research Center, and the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture, along with reporting by Al Jazeera, CBS News, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, JURIST, and AFP. Israeli government and military positions are sourced from public statements by the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Israel Defence Forces. Casualty and displacement figures are as reported by the cited organisations as of late July 2026 and may be revised as more comprehensive data becomes available.

A note on terminology

This article uses "settlers" to refer to Israeli citizens residing in West Bank settlements and outposts, consistent with UN and international news agency usage; it does not refer to the settlers' religious identity. The term ‘outpost’ denotes settlement construction unauthorised even under Israeli law, as distinct from settlements formally sanctioned by the Israeli government; both are considered unlawful under international law per the 2024 ICJ advisory opinion. "Area A," "Area B" and "Area C" refer to the administrative divisions of the West Bank established under the 1995 Oslo II Accord, indicating respectively full Palestinian civil and security control, Palestinian civil control with Israeli security oversight, and full Israeli civil and security control.

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