Last month, 56 years of Israel’s belligerent occupation of the Palestinian territory was marked, making it the longest occupation in modern history. Over 56 years on, Israel has, in fact, undertaken the de jure and de facto annexation of large parts of the occupied Palestinian territory by ruthless policies, including land confiscation, illegal settlements and dispossession. The policies have also been coupled with rampant discrimination, inflicting immense suffering on Palestinians, disrupting every aspect of their daily life and depriving them of their fundamental rights. For the last 56 years, Israel has been forcing thousands of Palestinians off their land, occupying and illegally using it to create settlements that exclusively house Jewish Israeli settlers.
These settlements have displaced entire Palestinian communities, their homes and livelihoods destroyed, restrictions enforced on their movement, access to their own water, land and natural resources and violently attacked by the Israeli military and settlers. Over the past years, Israel has demolished tens of thousands of Palestinian properties and displaced large swathes of the population to build homes and infrastructure to illegally settle its own population in the occupied territories and divert Palestinian natural resources such as water and agricultural land for settlement use.
Despite multiple U.N. resolutions, Israel has continued to appropriate the Palestinian land and support over 700,000 settlers living in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem and which is expected to grow by 500,000 more in the next five years, putting a two-state solution further out of reach than ever.
Relentless expansion
On Dec. 29, 2022, Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power and began his sixth term as prime minister of Israel at the helm of what has been described by several observers as the most far-right government in Israeli history, including openly racist parties like Otzma Yehudit ("Jewish Strength" in English). In his prior term as prime minister, Netanyahu showed strong support for the settlement movement and committed annex parts of the West Bank.
With the extreme far-right Israeli government dominated by religious and ultranationalist politicians with close ties to the settlement movement, the situation in the Palestinian territories today is at a critical, dangerous juncture. In the first six months since Netanyahu returned to office, his administration has given the green light for a record 13,000 settlement units in the West Bank, making 2023 already the highest year on record in terms of settlement approvals, according to an analysis by Peace Now, an Israeli rights group.
On the other hand, extreme levels of armed settler violence have been systematically attacking Palestinian villages, terrorizing their communities and impacting their lives. The U.N. has documented 591 Israeli settler attacks so far this year that have resulted in casualties and property damage. The monthly average for the first six months of 2023 is 39% higher than the monthly average of settler-related incidents in 2022. Besides, settlers killed six Palestinians and injured 204 others, including 24 children, in the first six months of 2023.
Fueling violence
While settler violence has been an ongoing issue, the near-daily threat for many Palestinians during the past years, a significant escalation in attacks has occurred under Netanyahu’s far-right and pro-settler government.
The relentless expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the intensified steps to create irreversible facts on the ground have recently fueled one of the most violent phases between Israelis and Palestinians outside of a full-scale war in years. The surge of violence over the past months in the West Bank included rampages by Israeli forces operations and scores of Israeli settlers in Palestinian towns and villages.
In July, Israeli forces conducted the largest Israeli operation in the occupied West Bank since 2002 in a two-day large-scale air and ground operation in the Jenin camp and its surroundings. The objective of the operation, as stated, was to counter the presence of Palestinian resistance in Jenin. During the raid, Israeli forces killed 12 Palestinians, including four children, injured more than 100, and more than 120 were detained. The raid caused extensive damage to roads, homes, cars and public infrastructure.
Over the past few months, Israeli settlers have launched a spate of violent attacks on different Palestinian communities and towns across the occupied West Bank, torching homes, cars, farms and businesses, firing live bullets, killing and causing numerous injuries to Palestinians. At least 130 Palestinians and 24 people on the Israeli side have been killed so far this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press (AP).
Israeli human rights groups say the campaigns of harassment and intimidation against Palestinian families are fueled by the goals of pushing Palestinians out of their homes, claiming more land for Israeli settlements and solidifying permanent, undemocratic Israeli control over Palestinian territory.
On his part, Lior Amihai, the executive director of Peace Now, said that settlers were receiving unprecedented support from members of the Netanyahu government and were facing little or no accountability for their actions.
Aside from the Israeli Defense Forces, the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) and Israeli police leaders called the settler attacks "nationalist terror in every sense." The new Israeli government’s plans now include reforming the judiciary, which would effectively give politicians full control over supreme court appointments and allow parliament to override judicial decisions.
Frozen process
Meanwhile, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is set to be completely frozen. Indeed, not a single party in the incumbent coalition backs the two-state solution, and most even deny Palestinian nationhood and support deepening Israel’s occupation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
"There are no Palestinians because there isn’t a Palestinian people," Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said during a speech last March in Paris at a lectern draped with what appeared to be an image showing the map of Israel that included the occupied West Bank, Gaza and Jordan.
Israel’s escalating violence, human rights violations and abuses in the occupied Palestinian territory, and the absence of a political horizon have empowered extremists, eroded hope and illustrated the tough challenges Palestinians are facing now with the far-right Israeli government in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The entrenched Israeli occupation, indistinguishable from practices of apartheid, based on the institutional discrimination of one racial-national-ethnic group over another and the international inaction in the face of Israel’s choice to deepen its occupation with new levels of violence will only encourage more of the same.