As settler attacks rise, police enforcement has plummeted, data shows

The number of police investigations into Jewish nationalist violence in the West Bank has sharply declined over the past three years, according to a Channel 12 report, even as settler attacks on Palestinians have reached all-time highs.

There has been a 73% decline in the number of investigations opened since 2023, according to the outlet, under far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Police have opened only 60 investigations into settler violence this year, compared to 150 cases in 2024 and 235 cases in 2023, despite reports of attacks going up over that period, not down.

The report says just 10% of investigations led to indictments in 2023. It says this number was even lower the next year, though it does not specify the exact percentage and simply notes that the majority of probes have stalled or were closed with no charges filed.

Ben Gvir himself resides in a West Bank settlement, and before entering politics worked as a lawyer representing mostly far-right Jewish Israelis accused of extremist violence.

The decline in the number of investigations goes hand-in-hand with a marked rise in settler violence, with over 704 incidents of “nationalistic crime” recorded by the IDF since the start of the year. In all of 2024, the IDF recorded 675 incidents of nationalistic crime.

Earlier this week, dozens of Israeli settlers launched a major arson attack on Palestinian factories and farmland in the northern West Bank, injuring four Palestinians and causing widespread property damage. Later on, masked Israeli assailants gathered at the Baron Industrial Zone, where they confronted soldiers and vandalized an IDF vehicle.

Four suspects were arrested in relation to the incident, marking a rare instance in which law enforcement has acted against settler violence. Nevertheless, three of the suspects went free within a day, leaving only one still in custody.

IDF chief Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said yesterday he “strongly condemns” the recent attacks by settlers, which “cross a red line,” and said the IDF “will not tolerate phenomena of a criminal minority that stains a law-abiding public.”