Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity, and have been constructed on lands that Israel has militarily occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967. The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law, but Israel disputes this. In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found in an advisory opinion that Israel's occupation was illegal and ruled that Israel had "an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers" from the occupied territories. The expansion of settlements often involves the confiscation of Palestinian land and resources, leading to displacement of Palestinian communities and creating a source of tension and conflict. Settlements are often protected by the Israeli military and are frequently flashpoints for violence against Palestinians. Furthermore, the presence of settlements and Jewish-only bypass roads creates a fragmented Palestinian territory, seriously hindering economic development and freedom of movement for Palestinians.
Hilltop Youth are extremist Religious Zionist settler youth operating in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. They are known for establishing outposts without an Israeli legal basis and conducting settler violence against Palestinians there.
Baruch Meir Marzel is an Israeli politician and activist. He is an Orthodox Jew originally from Boston who now lives in the Jewish community of Hebron in Tel Rumeida with his wife and nine children. He was the leader of the far-right-oriented Jewish National Front party. He is now a member of Otzma Yehudit. He was the "right-hand man" of assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane, acting as spokesman for the American-born rabbi's Kach organization for ten years. The mainstream Israeli press has described him as an "extreme right-wing activist".
Noam Federman is a religious-Orthodox right-wing Israeli Jew in Hebron, and a former leader of the Kach Party, which he has been involved with since he was 14. He has been held in administrative detention several times. Federman hosts a weekly Internet program called "Federman Without Censor". It can be heard on the Hebrew section of the Jewish Task Force's website. JTF funds his political activities in Israel.
HaMoked is an Israel based human rights organization founded by Dr. Lotte Salzberger with the stated aim of assisting "Palestinians subjected to the Israeli occupation which causes severe and ongoing violation of their rights." HaMoked states that it works for the enforcement of the standards and values of international human rights and humanitarian law.
Jewish terrorism is terrorism, including religious terrorism, committed by extremists within Judaism.
The 97th Netzah Yehuda Battalion, previously known as Nahal Haredi is a battalion in the Kfir Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces. The purpose of the unit is to allow Haredi Jewish men to serve as combat soldiers in the Israeli military by creating an atmosphere conducive to their religious convictions in the strict observance of Halakha. The battalion has been accused of human rights violations against Palestinians, including killing unarmed civilians, killing suspects in custody, and torture.
Yitzhar is an Israeli settlement located in the West Bank, south of the city of Nablus, just off Route 60, north of the Tapuach Junction. The predominantly Orthodox Jewish community falls under the jurisdiction of Shomron Regional Council. In 2022, it had a population of 2,093.
Economic sanctions and other measures were taken by Israel, the United States and other countries against the Palestinian National Authority (PA), including the suspension of international aid following the decisive victory for Hamas at the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) election on 25 January 2006.
Lehava is a far-right and Jewish supremacist organization based in Israel that strictly opposes Jewish assimilation, objecting to most personal relationships between Jews and non-Jews. It is opposed to the Christian presence in Israel. It has an anti-intermarriage focus, denouncing marriages between Jews and non-Jews forbidden by Orthodox Jewish law. The group has over 10,000 members. In 2024, the United States placed Lehava and its leader, Bentzi Gopstein, on a sanctions list for their role in fomenting Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, labeling Lehava "the largest violent extremist organization in Israel."
The price tag attack policy, also sometimes referred to as mutual responsibility, is the name originally given to the attacks and acts of vandalism committed primarily in the occupied West Bank by extremist Israeli settler youths against Palestinian Arabs, and to a lesser extent, against left-wing Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, Christians, and Israeli security forces. The youths officially claim that the acts are committed to "exact a price from local Palestinians or from the Israeli security forces for any action taken against their settlement enterprise".
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is a Palestinian human rights organization based in Gaza City. It was founded in 1995 by Raji Sourani, who is its director. It was established by a group of Palestinian lawyers and human rights activists and receives funding from governmental, non-governmental, and religious sources.
Ben-Zion "Bentzi" Gopstein is a political activist affiliated with the far-right in Israel, a student of Meir Kahane, and founder and director of Lehava ("Flame"), an Israeli Jewish anti-assimilation organization. He was a member of the Council of Kiryat Arba, an Israeli settlement where Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir also resides, between 2010 and 2013. In November 2019, he was indicted on charges of incitement to terrorism, violence, and racism. In April 2024, he was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State and the European Union.
Palestinians are the target of violence by Israeli settlers and their supporters, predominantly in the West Bank. In November 2021, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz discussed the steep rise in the number of incidents between settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank, many of which result from attacks by residents of illegal settler outposts on Palestinians from neighboring villages. Settler violence also includes acts known as price tag attacks that are in response to actions by the Israeli government, usually against Palestinian targets and occasionally against Israeli security forces in the West Bank.
Meir Ettinger is an Israeli Kahanist activist and extremist known for leading the Hilltop Youth, a group that pursues the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, conducts punitive price tag attacks on Palestinian villages, and targets Muslim and Christian sites. Ettinger has called for the demolition of the secular state of Israel, and its replacement by a religious society based on Biblical principles.
Following the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted on 27 May 2021 to set up a United Nations fact-finding mission to investigate possible war crimes and other abuses committed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The Lions' Den is a Palestinian militant group operating in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Israel–Hamas war has significant economic implications. The number of Palestinians living in poverty has surged dramatically, with an additional 300,000 people falling into poverty by November 2023. The war caused a severe economic downturn, with employment in the Gaza Strip plummeting by 61% and the West Bank by 24% between October and November 2023. By March 2024, unemployment in the Palestinian Territories had soared to 57%, resulting in 500,000 job losses.
During the Israel–Hamas war, Israeli forces have carried out multiple ground incursions, occasionally accompanied by airstrikes, into several Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including Jenin and Tulkarm. The Israeli incursions have led to clashes with Palestinian militants. 806 West Bank Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the conflict began, including 143 children. The United Nations recorded more than 800 Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians between October 2023 and May 2024. Israel has arrested an estimated 10,000 West Bank Palestinians between 7 October 2023 and August 2024. On 15 December, Doctors Without Borders reported 2023 was the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank in recorded history.
Tsav 9 is a right-wing organization based in Israel, formed by some of the families of people taken hostage by Hamas fighters from the Gaza Strip on 7 October 2023 and their supporters with alleged ties to the Israel army reservists and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. It has an estimated membership count of over 400 people. The group has been involved in protests and actions against the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. On 14 June 2024, the United States State Department officially added the group to its list of sanctioned entities for impeding the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, categorizing it as a "violent extremist" group.
