As much of the world’s attention is focused on Israel’s horrific genocide in Gaza, Israel is also escalating its multi-pronged campaign of terror, forced displacement and ethnic cleansing in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. This is coupled with a violent expansion of illegal Israeli settlements right on Palestinian-owned land.

The West Bank is the area of historic Palestine west of the Jordan River (on the east side of what is now Israel). It is home to nearly three million Palestinians and has been mandated by the United Nations to be part of a future Palestinian state. Yet it has been under military occupation by Israel since it was seized by Israel through war in 1967. 

It is a basic principle of international law that a country that is occupying a territory cannot just take it over and make it part of its country. But since 1967, Israel—with U.S. backing—has violated international law and flooded the West Bank with illegal settlements and 500,000 settlers. These settlements are vehicles for Israel’s theft of what, according to international law, is Palestinian land, and to carve it up, forcing Palestinians into small areas surrounded by Israeli military and hemmed in with “checkpoints.” At the same time, the Palestinian population is subjected to continuous terror by mobs of heavily armed, rabidly racist “settlers,” who rampage across the West Bank terrorizing and brutalizing unarmed Palestinian farmers with impunity.

Here are some of the main Israeli assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank in recent months:

• Israel’s New Settlement Expansion—Huge Step Toward Annexation. On May 29, the Israeli government announced it was planning to create 22 new settlements in the West Bank—the biggest expansion in decades.¹  Also, on June 3, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s pro-genocide Finance Minister, announced that the government would move ahead with construction plans, including 15,000 new housing units, that will “effectively divide the territory's northern and southern regions,” Haaretz reports. “This is how you kill the Palestinian state… This is how you bring in a million residents,” he said. “God willing, there'll be [Israeli] sovereignty [i.e., annexation of the West Bank] during this term.”
• West Bank Land Registration: Enabling Palestinian Dispossession. For the first time since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, the government has decided to implement land registration. This is a step toward annexation in that Israelis will be able to claim permanent legal ownership of land while Palestinians, for all practical purposes, will not. This decision violates the prohibition against occupying powers making long-term changes in occupied territory, according to an international human rights lawyer. “There's no chance that any Palestinian will have their rights recognized," he said, adding that the decision will lead to "a massive land grab by Israel of all lands in Area C." (A part of the West Bank administered by Israel.)
• Israeli Displaces Tens of Thousands—“Huge, Under-the-Radar Shift.” Israel has forced tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in the last several months. “Some Palestinians fear it may be laying the ground to annex the territory,” the New York Times reports, calling it a “Huge, Under-the-Radar Shift” in the West Bank. Jenin is one of the towns targeted. One densely populated Jenin neighborhood where “more than 10,000 people lived until recently," now "is empty—its roads blocked by mounds of dirt and flanked by piles of rubble.” So far some 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced, more than any other Israeli military operation since Israel captured the territory during the 1967 Middle East war. (See Israel Targets Jenin, Escalates Violent Ethnic Cleansing Across the West Bank, revcom.us, January 27, 2025.)

• The Deadliest Period for Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Detention. After October 7, 2023, the abuse of prisoners has gravely worsened, with at least 70 deaths, and a “dramatic escalation in the number of Palestinians behind bars”—more than 10,100, nearly double the number from before October 7—as well as “increasing prisoner abuse and mistreatment by Israeli authorities.”
• Most Settler Attacks in Over Two Decades. There are now more Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian communities in the West Bank than any other time in at least two decades, with an average of 44 Palestinians injured each month by settler attacks.²

• Jerusalem Day Flag March: Mass Pogrom (Race Riot) Against Palestinians. May 26. This annual, government-sponsored commemoration of Israel's seizure of East Jerusalem in 1967, features tens of thousands of fanatical youths from the religious Zionist movement rampaging through the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City, attacking Palestinians, “stealing merchandise, smashing shop signs, beating on metal doors with flagpoles, plastering racist stickers by the hundreds, and more.”  

  In addition to “Death to Arabs” chants, this year these rabid Zionist youths celebrated the genocide in Gaza: "There's no school in Gaza, there's no children left," "Let the IDF fuck the Arabs," and "Flatten Gaza." One Haaretz writer summed up, “Contrary to claims from religious-nationalist leaders, this hate is not the work of a small fringe… It wasn't a fringe few singing the racist songs, it was the majority.” Adding, “There is a straight line that connects the crude racism, violence, and cruelty unleashed every Jerusalem Day with the horrors unfolding in Gaza.”

• Israel Shuts Six UNRWA Schools Sending Hundreds of Students Home. UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, was formed in 1948 to address the basic needs of the Palestinian people, including for food, shelter, education, and other basic necessities. The May 8 order carried out by Israeli security forces, forced some 700 students in East Jerusalem to leave school and go home. Israel has prohibited UNRWA’s activities in Israel, and this is yet another escalation of its campaign to destroy the organization which provides vital humanitarian support and services to Palestinians.
• Israeli Military Fires on Foreign Diplomats. On May 21, a diplomatic delegation from the European Union came under Israeli fire (“warning shots”) as it was conducting an official investigation of the humanitarian situation in the besieged Jenin refugee camp, which has been under violent Israeli attack.
• Israel Launches Public Relations Campaign to Legitimize Illegal West Bank Settlements. On May 7, Israel's Diaspora Ministry announced the launch of a nearly $1 million global public relations campaign to "bolster the legitimization of settlements" in the international arena.
• Trump Regime Shuts Down Direct Communications with Palestinians. “The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, plans to shut down a direct communications channel between U.S. diplomats in Jerusalem working on Palestinian issues and agencies in Washington,” the New York Times reports. This is a big signal that under Trump, the U.S. no longer considers Palestinian issues as important, or that the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip are separate from Israel. In short, it’s a step in the direction of Israeli annexation.

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These illegal Israeli assaults represent a serious and deadly leap. As in Gaza, these crimes are being accelerated thanks to the big green light from the Trump/MAGA fascist regime.

Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel was launched from Gaza, not the West Bank. Yet the people of the West Bank too are being imprisoned, tortured, terrorized, murdered and their land is being taken anyway. This is further irrefutable proof that Israel isn’t “defending itself against terrorism”—it’s seizing this moment to carry out an all-around genocide of the Palestinian people.