Palestinian families erect fences as settler attacks surge in West Bank

Abdul Rahman Jabr, whose home in al-Mughayyir was hit by settlers in April 2024, now surrounds his house with barbed wire and an iron fence after his vehicle was torched and windows shattered. His experience mirrors a broader pattern: the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission reports 14,742 settler attacks on Palestinians and their property from October 2023 to early October 2026, with a 63 % increase in the first seven months of 2026 alone.

Communities such as Sinjil have formed informal night-watch groups, gathering 20-30 unarmed volunteers nightly to guard key points, though Israeli soldiers have arrested six participants and injured at least ten. In Beitillu, landowner Nasr Radwan and his relatives maintain a 1,500-dunam estate that includes over 100 springs, despite frequent settler incursions and an outpost used to assault their crops. Human Rights Watch and Yesh Din note that few settler perpetrators face prosecution, leaving Palestinians to rely on self-defence measures while international law obliges Israel to protect civilians under the Fourth Geneva Convention.