Resistance to the Wall and Settlement: The Occupation Army and Settlers Carried Out 23,827 Attacks in 2025

SadaNews: The head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Minister Muayed Shaban, stated that the Israeli occupation forces and settlers carried out 23,827 attacks against citizens and their properties in various governorates throughout the last year, marking a record increase in the number of registered attacks in a single year. These attacks were distributed as follows: 1,382 on land and crops, 16,664 on individuals, and 5,398 on properties.

Shaban explained during a press conference held at the Commission's headquarters in Ramallah today, Monday, about the main violations of the occupation and its settlers during the year 2025, that the occupation army executed 18,384 attacks, while the settlers carried out 4,723, and both parties together executed 720.

Shaban stated that the year 2025 was heavy with blood, maps, and decisions, as the occupying state did not content itself with expanding settlements but also sought to expand the very meaning of control. Control is no longer limited to land as space, but has extended to redefine geography, symbolism, and the Palestinian existence as a whole. In a reality where the occupation authorities impose their effective control over approximately 41% of the total area of the West Bank and tighten their grip on about 70% of the areas classified as (C), and claim more than 90% of the area of the Palestinian Jordan Valley through a comprehensive system of military orders and expropriation procedures, numbers no longer serve as a neutral description of reality but rather as tangible evidence of a complete political project.

He added that this report documented a year of violations that were not committed in the shadows, but rather executed in broad daylight, under the protection of a government that views land as a spoils, law as a tool, and power as a substitute for legitimacy, clarifying that the report does not merely provide a numerical narrative of violations but places these facts within their political and ethical context, as a product of a comprehensive colonial project targeting land, humanity, and memory simultaneously. Thus, when the Palestinian geography is reduced to isolated and besieged enclaves, and the Palestinian is driven out of the vital space of his land, the occupation becomes a permanent condition rather than a temporary measure.

14 Martyrs Due to Settler Attacks and Assault on 35,000 Trees

Shaban added that settler attacks have resulted in the martyrdom of 14 citizens since the beginning of the year, ignited 434 fires in citizens' properties and fields, including 307 fires in citizens' properties and 127 in agricultural fields, concentrated in the governorates of: Ramallah with 181, Nablus with 79, then Hebron with 42, and Tulkarem with 26. He pointed out that the army and settlers implemented 892 attacks that led to the uprooting, damage, destruction, and poisoning of a total of 35,273 trees, of which 26,988 were olive trees, with the governorates of Ramallah, Al-Bireh, Bethlehem, Nablus, Hebron, and Salfit taking the largest share.

He continued that settler terrorism in these hotspots has led to the displacement of 13 Palestinian Bedouin communities since the beginning of last year, consisting of 197 families encompassing 1,090 individuals from their places of residence to other locations, including the displacements of the Deir Alla, Ein Ayyub, Mleihat, Mughayer al-Deir, West Kober, Al-Mahariq, Jibiya, and others, with settlers controlling the sites.

Demolition of 1,400 Facilities and Notices for the Demolition of 991 Other Facilities

He indicated that the occupation authorities executed a total of 538 demolition operations during the year 2025, which led to the demolition of 1,400 facilities, representing an unprecedented rise in the systematic targeting of Palestinian construction and natural growth, including 304 inhabited homes and 74 uninhabited ones, in addition to 270 sources of livelihood and 490 agricultural facilities concentrated in the governorates of Hebron, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Tubas, and Nablus. In parallel, Shaban noted that the number of notices served to citizens rose to 991 notices, concentrated in the governorates of: Hebron with 276, Ramallah with 169 notices, and Bethlehem and Jerusalem with 124 notices each, indicating a threat to further target Palestinian construction under the pretext of lacking permits.

Seizure of 5,572 Dunams and Study of 265 Structural Plans for Settlements

Regarding colonial settlement expansion, Shaban said that the occupation authorities seized 5,572 dunams last year through 94 orders for military purposes, 24 of which led to the establishment of buffer zones around settlements, while 52 aimed at creating security roads for the benefit of settlers, 5 aimed at establishing barbed wire fences and walls, and 9 for establishing military sites, among others and their expansion, in addition to 3 expropriation orders and 4 state land declaration orders. They followed this by allocating a total of 16,733 dunams of previously seized land for settlers' grazing, reinforcing once again their support for armed settler terrorism in controlling land under the pretexts of grazing and agriculture.

Regarding settlement expansion, Shaban indicated that the "planning committees" of the occupation authorities studied a total of 265 structural plans aimed at building a total of 34,979 settlement units over an area of 33,448 dunams, with the approval process having endorsed 20,850 of these units, while 14,129 new settlement units were submitted for approval, both within West Bank settlements and settlements and neighborhoods inside the municipal boundaries of the occupation in Jerusalem.

He added that these plans were concentrated in the governorates of: Jerusalem with 107 structural plans (41 plans outside the municipal boundaries of the occupation and 66 within settlements inside the municipal boundaries), followed by Salfit with 41, Bethlehem with 34, Ramallah with 31, and Nablus and Qalqilya each with 17, noting that the most dangerous of these approved plans was the E1 plan, which was approved in August of this year after a delay and withdrawal that lasted for 30 years. He added that with the approval of this plan, the occupying state has executed the first step of the Greater Jerusalem plan aimed at annexing 3 major settlement blocs to the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem municipality, which are (the Ma'ale Adumim bloc, which has effectively been merged) and the Givat Ze'ev bloc and the Gush Etzion bloc, deepening the separation of Jerusalem from its Palestinian context and making Jerusalem a demographic and geographic extension of Jewish presence within the municipal boundaries and the colonial presence outside the boundaries.

He indicated that the occupying state has decided to separate 13 settlement neighborhoods and consider them separate neighborhoods, then added a decision to establish 22 new settlements, and concluded the year with its final decision to establish 19 new colonial sites added to a list of 68 agricultural outposts that the occupying government decided to extend with all the necessary infrastructure to establish them on citizens' lands. Moreover, tenders were issued to build 10,098 new settlement units, including over 7,000 for the Ma'ale Adumim settlement east of Jerusalem, 900 for the Efrat settlement on Bethlehem lands, and 700 others in Ariel on Salfit lands, among others.

The Knesset as an Advanced Tool in Employing Laws to Deepen Colonialism

Shaban pointed out that legislatively, the year 2025 represented an advanced stage in employing the legislative system as a central tool for deepening the colonial project. A wide range of laws and legislative amendments targeting the legalization of existing colonial facts were pushed forward in the Knesset, expanding the powers of settlers and their local councils, and entrenching legal discrimination in land management, planning, and construction. These projects included laws aimed at settling colonial outposts established without prior government decisions, enhancing Israeli control over the West Bank lands by transferring additional civil powers to the occupation institutions, and undermining the legal status of Palestinian land and its owners, such as the law enabling settlers to own properties and land and changing the names of Palestinian land to ancient biblical names. These legislations sought to provide a legal cover for acts of seizure and demolition, transforming exceptional procedures into permanent rules, reflecting the Knesset's shift from a traditional legislative role to a direct partner in the imposition of creeping annexation, and redefining occupation as a system of coercive sovereignty based on legislation rather than merely military force.

Shaban affirmed that the current stage requires an urgent national transition from describing risks to building a comprehensive response to protect Palestinian land, based on clear role distribution and integrated efforts among official institutions and political and community forces, which reinstates the importance of land as the essence and center of the conflict.

He emphasized the necessity for immediate and systematic protection for targeted Palestinian communities through practical and sustainable intervention plans that enhance the resilience of individuals in their land as rightful owners, not merely recipients of aid, alongside unifying Palestinian legal efforts and activating international accountability tools without delay or selectivity, and investing documented accumulations in effective judicial paths before international courts and relevant UN mechanisms.

He also called for developing popular resistance tools that ensure their continuity and effectiveness, transitioning them from seasonal and symbolic actions to organized and fruitful actions, while highlighting the importance of building a unified national political and media discourse that redefines what is happening as a complete settler colonialism. He concluded that all of this falls within a comprehensive national vision for protecting Palestinian geography, prioritizing the supreme national interest, and relying on a conscious popular will capable of turning perseverance into action and rights into an irreversible path of recovery.