Israeli Settlers Push Relentless Escalation in the West Bank as Palestinian Restraint Begins to Crack
Sunday, July 26, 2026 at 11:22PM Settler incursions, expanding outposts and the military's response have created conditions in which confrontation, as seen in the deadly clashes over the weekend, was increasingly inevitable
by Amira Hass 26 JUly 2026 Analysis: Haaretz
Palestinians face IDF soldiers as they try to return to their homes in the West Bank town of Tarqumiyah, last year. Credit: Itai Ron
Palestinians in the West Bank have shown and still exercise impressive restraint given the increasing number of attacks and provocative "hikes" by settlers into their midst.
It's clear that some of this restraint stems from pure fear: Who wouldn't be afraid of large gangs of men armed with guns and clubs, who not only are unafraid of the police, the army, the courts and public opinion, but know that, in fact, they'll receive their support?
One result of this situation is that houses on the outskirts of Palestinian villages have become fortresses. Their residents surround themselves with barbed wire fences or walls, add remote-controlled iron doors and cover windows with metal mesh so stones won't shatter the glass.
Every such house has surveillance cameras that document the outside: Figures with the usual features – a hoodie and tzitzit, a kippa and sidelocks – emerge from the olive grove or garden, running around or simply "going on a hike" around the house, if they aren't trying to set it on fire.
People carry the body of a Palestinian who, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, was killed by Israeli forces near the village of Tell on Friday. Credit: Majdi Mohammed/AP
The residents forbid their children from playing outdoors or walking around the neighboring hills. After all, a group of armed Jews on a hike could pop out at any moment, and who knows what might happen then.
On Friday, this restraint cracked in the village of Tell after a group of residents attempted to block some armed Jews on a hike from entering the village. Footage of the incident shows that during the ensuing confrontation, one of the Palestinians grabbed the gun of Benayahu Melet, a member of the security squad at the outpost of Havat Gilad, who was accompanying the hikers.
Melet was later shot to death. In one of the eulogies for Melet, it was said that he had "pushed relentlessly to conquer the area" and that he was the "driving spirit in the forum, 'Fighting over every last dunam.'"
During the confrontation, soldiers or settlers killed four men from the Ramadan family, who had come out to protect their homes and children. It's not the crack in the restraint that's surprising, but the fact that it has been maintained for so long, by so many people.
An important component of Palestinian restraint is the political understanding that the settlers and their loyal representatives in government are interested in exactly what is transpiring: another round of rampage and uncontrolled rioting by settlers, in as many villages as possible.
A helicopter evacuates people injured outside Havat Gilad on Friday morning. Credit: Emergency services spokesperson
And this at a time in which the army itself is attacking and harming as many Palestinian civilians as possible, with politicians responding by legalizing more Jewish outposts and farms. The Palestinians know full well that the government has equipped their assailants with guns and all-terrain vehicles not for their security but to foment an escalation.
The settlers' calculated provocations, even ahead of a new election season, aim for results far beyond the ballot boxes. Every pre-planned hike among villages and every herding outpost taking over Palestinian grazing land push Israel toward realizing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's so-called Decisive Plan.
This plan strives to bring about Palestinians' surrender, their mass "emigration," more killing and the erosion of any social cohesion.
The IDF and the Shin Bet security services rushed to describe the unplanned killing of the armed Melet as a terror attack. They thereby signaled that they intend to exploit the opportunity provided to them by the settlers, and, in the grand tradition in Israel, to punish the attacked. And that is indeed what has been happening since midday Friday.
The army has been raiding villages and towns, breaking into houses, uprooting olive trees, besieging Nablus, severing West Bank districts from each other, blocking roads between villages and arresting people.
The army is concerned by 70 self-defense groups that have been formed in West Bank villages. For lack of a better word to describe this concern, we'll call it chutzpa.
Palestinians load water containers as they leave the village of Ras Ein al-Auja, following settler attacks, in January. Credit: Itai Ron
As an occupying force, the IDF, which has overall responsibility for security across the West Bank, was supposed to stop Jews from attacking Palestinian civilians decades ago. Not only has it failed in the past and present, it is actively helping Jewish assailants and then arresting people defending their homes and children.
One doesn't need an active imagination to guess what would happen if young Palestinians, with kaffiyehs around their necks, showed up at the settlement of Ariel, for example, or just went hiking west of the separation barrier on land out of bounds for their Palestinian owners. If a Jew shot and hit these Palestinians, it would not have been called an act of terror.
Furthermore, if just one of those Palestinians were armed, any Jew who rushed to kill those hikers would have been called a hero. A military occupation lasting 60 years involves the manufacturing of double and triple standards while completely denying their existence.
In this matter too, great and constant restraint is needed on the part of occupied Palestinians so as not to explode in rage and loathing every day.
The punishment of victims is enforced on a civilian population, already significantly weakened by the Israeli government's suffocating policies. Most of the Palestinian population has been impoverished following the confiscation of the Palestinian Authority's revenues by the Finance Ministry, and the prohibition to work in Israel.
The expansion of outposts and mounting orders of closed military zones are eliminating sources of livelihood such as shepherding and agriculture. The Palestinian health system is almost nonfunctional, and the situation of people with chronic illness is deteriorating given the lack of medicine.
In addition, the Karameh (Allenby) border crossing, which is the only international crossing available to the Palestinians, is open for limited hours only and is closed on Saturdays. This reality not only enables a thriving industry of extortion, but turns every entry or exit to the West Bank into an agonizing saga.
No Palestinian is expecting an imminent disaster – they're already living through an ongoing one, and they know that the destroyed Gaza Strip is the ultimate model envisioned by Israel's regime.
The Palestinian Authority's leadership seems more pathetic and out-of-touch than ever before. It condemns, cautions and calls on the world to intervene, as if it were a non-governmental organization and not a body that claims to be the sole representative of the Palestinian people.
It does not initiate or plan bold political steps that would release it from the deadlock imposed by the Oslo Accords, which Israel has been violating for a long time. It is not deploying thousands of its security forces to protect the attacked – due to the agreement that forbids it from doing so.
Even in houses of veteran Fatah supporters, people don't hide the fury and disgust they feel toward the Palestinian Authority. Not for its weakness but for using this weakness as an excuse for inaction and thoughtlessness. The public is convinced that the ruling echelon is concerned about losing the minor privileges granted by Israel and the economic perks deriving from its status.
Here, too, people maintain restraint, both because they fear the authority's security forces and because they know that the dominant Israeli right welcomes any internal tension among Palestinians and waits for their bloody fraternal strife.
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