Israeli authorities are directly involved in illegal settler attacks that have killed, injured and displaced Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, while Israeli security forces provide protection to settlers, a UN inquiry said on Tuesday.
The report by the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found that Israeli authorities have enabled settler attacks through financial and military support, in a climate of impunity fostered by judicial and law-enforcement bodies.
It said attacks on Palestinian villages and agricultural land have surged since 2023, rising by 130 percent, including incidents involving groups of masked assailants. Israeli security forces have routinely accompanied settlers and acted as a shield for the violence, the report said.
The Israeli Prime Minister's Office and military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel rejects charges that its troops shield settlers during attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, saying such actions are rogue incidents that violate military protocol and are investigated. Israeli and Palestinian rights groups say such investigations rarely lead to punishment.
Hundreds of thousands of illegal Israeli settlers live among millions of Palestinians on land Israel occupied in a 1967 war, where Palestinians hope to build a state.
Most countries and the UN's top court consider such settlements illegal and a violation of international law.
At least seven Palestinians were killed and 832 injured last year, with violence continuing into 2026 in the form of near-daily attacks, according to the United Nations.
“The increasing participation of Israeli security forces in settler attacks amounts to a de facto collapse of the distinction between settlers and soldiers,” the report found.
It said such violence has been used to advance state policy, including the unlawful occupation, displacement of Palestinians and the annexation of Palestinian territory.
The Commission documented cases of assaults, abductions and abuse of Palestinian children by illegal settlers.
In one incident on April 19 2025, a 12-year-old girl and her 3-year-old brother were abducted at knifepoint, dragged to an olive grove and tied to a tree with plastic restraints until their family intervened.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued a non-binding advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and its settlements there are illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible, in its strongest findings to date on the conflict.
The Commission also said settlers committed or threatened sexual violence to instil fear and harassed Palestinian women.
“The relentless, daily assaults by Israeli settlers against Palestinians are intolerable — and must end,” said the commission's head, S. Muralidhar, an Indian former senior judge.
He urged the international community to pressure Israel to dismantle settlements and outposts and curb the violence.
Despite periodic condemnations and the dismantling of some unauthorised outposts, Israeli authorities have not taken sustained measures to stop the attacks, the report said.
A previous report by the Commission found that Israel had committed genocide during its military offensive in Gaza, and that senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had incited these acts.
