UN inquiry finds Israeli forces complicit in West Bank settler attacks

JERUSALEM: A United Nations inquiry said on Tuesday that Israeli authorities were directly involved in settler attacks in the occupied West Bank that have killed, injured and displaced Palestinians, while Israeli security forces protected settlers during the assaults.

The findings were set out in a report by the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which said Israeli authorities enabled the attacks through financial and military backing in what it described as a climate of impunity reinforced by judicial and law-enforcement bodies. Hamas committed war crimes against both Palestinians and Israelis.

West Bank findings

According to the commission, settler attacks on Palestinian villages and agricultural land have risen sharply since 2023, increasing by 130%, including incidents involving groups of masked attackers. Israeli security forces routinely accompanied settlers and acted as protection for the violence.

The violence had been used to advance state policy, including the unlawful occupation, the displacement of Palestinians and the annexation of Palestinian territory. It also documented assaults, abductions and the abuse of Palestinian children by settlers.

In one case cited by the commission, a 12-year-old girl and her three-year-old brother were abducted at knifepoint on April 19, 2025, taken to an olive grove and tied to a tree with plastic restraints until their family intervened. The commission also said settlers committed or threatened sexual violence to spread fear and harassed Palestinian women.

The commission said in its report:

"The increasing participation of Israeli security forces in settler attacks amounts to a de facto collapse of the distinction between settlers and soldiers"

S Muralidhar, the head of the commission and a former senior Indian judge, said the attacks must stop and called on the international community to pressure Israel to dismantle settlements and outposts and restrain the violence.

"The relentless, daily assaults by Israeli settlers against Palestinians are intolerable - and must end"

Hamas abuses in Gaza

The same report said the commission was also deeply alarmed by serious abuses it documented in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. It found that Hamas-affiliated forces were involved in at least 60 of 249 documented cases of executions and severe physical violence between 2024 and 2025.

Those cases included beatings with metal pipes and bone-breaking punishments over allegations of collaboration with Israel or looting aid. 11 men were publicly executed for alleged collaboration in September and October 2025. The commission said those acts amounted to war crimes and violations of international law.

The commission also said the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas and other armed groups, in which 1,200 people were killed and hostages were taken and property was destroyed, amounted to war crimes. Those attacks were followed by an Israeli assault on Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and devastated much of the territory.