The IDF and settlers have killed more people in the occupied West Bank in the past three years than the previous 17 combined, new analysis has found.
The territory has been occupied by Israel since 1967, with the International Court of Justice ruling in 2024 that it is in violation of international law.
As of 2025 there were over half a million settlers living in the West Bank, some in settlements administered by the Israeli government and others in outposts which the government has not recognised.
Under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power transferring, directly or indirectly, its own population into a territory it occupies is a war crime.
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An Oxfam analysis of United Nations Data found that from 2023 to the end of 2025 a total of 1,244 Palestinians, including 268 children, have been killed by settlers or by the IDF.
That is more than the previous 17 years, from 2006 to the end of 2022, when 1,036 Palestinians were killed, including 225 children.
For the same periods analysed, in the 17 years between 2006 until the end of 2022, 86 Israeli settlers, including 12 children, were killed by Palestinians. In the last three years - from 2023 to the end of 2025 - 43 Israeli settlers have been killed, including ten children.
Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam International Humanitarian Policy Lead said: “The mounting killing of civilians in the West Bank is tragic and horrifying. While the eyes of the world have been on Gaza, attacks in the West Bank have been accelerating. Since the atrocities committed by Hamas and other armed groups in 2023, Israel has committed genocide in Gaza while also enabling an unprecedented surge of violence across the West Bank.
“Oxfam works with Palestinian families whose lives have been destroyed. It is devastating that scores of children are being killed. This is the human cost of impunity, Israeli violence and cruelty in full view, while world leaders look the other way”.
Saed, a 50-year-old who was forced out of his home in the Ein Samya community said: "We used to deal with settlers all the time, but over the past three years, settler violence has increased massively. Eventually we had to leave and now a settler is staying in my home. I saw him. He took over the community too. It breaks my heart to talk about the past.
“We went to another community in Jericho, but it did not stop there. Settlers closed the roads, carried weapons, harassed and terrified our children on their way to school, and grazed their livestock inside our community, next to our houses. In the worst cases they would steal our livestock under the protection of the army and police.”
Communities across the West Bank have experienced repeated demolitions and destruction not just of their homes but water pipelines, animal shelters and trees. Last year, the World Health Organisation documented over 230 attacks on healthcare facilities, including obstructed access, the vandalization of ambulances and harassment of medical staff.
There is now a record 925 obstacles that permanently or intermittently restrict the movement of over 3 million Palestinians across the West Bank including East Jerusalem. This is 43 per cent more than the annual average of 647 movement obstacles in the preceding 20 years.
In the first three months of this year alone there have been more than 540 settler attacks, 33 Palestinian people killed and more than 2,200 people displaced. More than 60 water and sanitation structures have been vandalized, including pipelines, irrigation systems and water tanks, which have undermined access to water in 32 Palestinian communities.
On Monday Amnesty International accused Israel of carrying out an ethnic cleansing of the West Bank Bedouin and herding communities.
A report by the human rights organisation found 117 predominantly Bedouin and herding communities experienced full or partial displacement due to settler attacks and related access restrictions between January 2023 and April 2026, affecting around 5,910 people.
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