RAMALLAH, (PIC)
The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission documented 2,161 assaults carried out by the Israeli occupation forces and settlers in January 2025, in the occupied West Bank, confirming that settler crimes have surpassed mere assaults to the level of terrorism endorsed by the official Israeli establishment.
In the monthly report issued on Monday regarding “Occupation Violations and Colonial Expansion Measures,” the Commission announced that the occupation forces executed 1,786 assaults, while settlers carried out 375 assaults, with the majority concentrated in the governorates of Al-Khalil with 358 assaults, Ramallah with 342, and Nablus with 328.
The report indicated that the assaults ranged from armed attacks on Palestinian towns and villages to imposing new facts on the ground, field executions, land destruction, uprooting trees, seizing properties, and military closures and checkpoints that sever the contiguity of Palestinian geography.
The Commission’s report highlighted that settler assaults were concentrated in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh governorate with 105 assaults, Nablus with 76 assaults, Al-Khalil with 55, and Qalqilya with 31 assaults, according to reports from the Palestinian News Agency, WAFA.
It confirmed that settlers carried out 318 acts of vandalism and theft of citizens’ properties, affecting vast areas of land, leading to the uprooting of 969 trees, including 960 olive trees—350 in Al-Khalil, 328 in Bethlehem, 160 in Salfit, 100 in Nablus, and 31 in Ramallah.
The report clarified that the occupation authorities executed 76 demolition operations last month, targeting 126 facilities, including 74 inhabited houses, 4 uninhabited, and 29 agricultural facilities, that concentrated in Jenin governorate with 47 demolitions, followed by Jerusalem with 14, Qalqilya with 11, and Bethlehem and Nablus with 10 each.
The occupation authorities notified the demolition of 131 facilities, that focused in Al-Khalil with 66 notifications, followed by Bethlehem with 45 notifications and Ramallah with 10 notifications.
Settlers attempted to establish 10 new pastoral/agricultural outposts since the beginning of January, distributed as follows: 4 outposts on lands in Tubas governorate, 3 in Nablus, and 3 others in Qalqilya, Ramallah, and Bethlehem.
Settlement in Jerusalem
According to the Commission’s report, the occupation authorities seized a total of 262 dunums of citizens’ lands through two expropriation orders for the purpose of expanding a settler road north of occupied Jerusalem. The first order targeted a total of 258 dunums of citizens’ lands in the villages of Jaba, Kafr Aqab, Al-Ram, Mukhmas, and Qalandiya in northern Jerusalem governorate.
The confiscations were conducted through an expropriation order aimed at expanding Road 45, which connects Road 60 near the Binyamin industrial area to the settlements of Kochav Ya’akov, reaching the Qalandiya military checkpoint. The second order involved taking the right of disposal over 4.5 dunums of land in the area for the purpose of expanding a colonial road.
According to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission’s report, the occupation authorities also studied a total of 31 structural plans (submission and approval) last month for the purpose of expanding settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, aiming to build a total of 943 settlement units on an area estimated at 9,881 dunums of Palestinian citizens’ lands.
The report indicated that these plans primarily aimed at changing land uses within the settlements from agricultural areas to “settler” residential areas, revealing the occupation’s intention to carry out extensive and intensive expansions in the upcoming phase, in addition to designating 3 plans among them for the expansion of two industrial areas within the settlements, while plans within the borders of Jerusalem aimed to build 3,512 settlement units on an area estimated at 441 dunums of Palestinian citizens’ lands.
The report emphasized that the escalating crimes of settlers have exceeded mere assaults to the level of terrorism endorsed by the official Israeli establishment, and cannot be viewed as isolated from the settlement context. Instead, it has become organized and protected by the occupation state within a racist legislative environment that provides support, care, and immunity.
It concluded that the occupation has become adept at inventing reasons to oppress Palestinians and turning their lives into continuous hell and suffering, an outcome that could only arise because the world has completely ceased to act as a guardian of human rights and a deterrent to the criminal behaviors practiced by the last occupying entity on Earth.