This statement was delivered by Human Rights Watch at the 61st regular session of the UN Human Rights Council during a general debate on the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories held on March 24, 2026.
While the world’s eyes are turned towards Israel and the US’s war with Iran, violence, displacement, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank are escalating. On a daily basis, settlers are invading Palestinian communities, firing live ammunition, setting homes and cars on fire, and attacking families in their homes.
These atrocities are not new, but the scale and rate of them are. In the first 17 days after the attack on Iran, Israeli NGO Yesh Din documented 170 separate incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. Just three months into the year, 2026 is already on track to surpass 2025, a year that saw Israeli settler violence reach a two-decade high.
Settler violence is not a case of a few “bad apples” or fringe actors outside control of the State. The Israeli government abets and enables settler violence by failing to hold them accountable for criminal acts.
Meanwhile, Israel continues approving and funding the growth of illegal settlements in a naked attempt to further fragment Palestinian communities and dispossess them.
Human Rights Watch calls on States to act to prevent further atrocities, including by imposing targeted sanctions on those implicated in ongoing grave abuses, suspending arms transfers to Israel, banning trade with illegal settlements, suspending preferential trade agreements with Israel, and supporting the International Criminal Court and its ongoing investigations, including by executing its arrest warrants. Failing to act now will have grave consequences for Palestinians, both today and in the future.
Thank you.
