Official Israeli police data reveals a staggering 73% drop in investigations into violent crimes committed by illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank over the past two years.
According to Israel’s Channel 12, only 60 investigation files were opened in 2024—down from 150 in 2023 and 235 in 2022.
This marks a 58% drop in one year and a 73% overall decline. Despite a documented surge in colonizer attacks, including incidents resulting in Palestinian fatalities, not a single indictment was filed in 2024.
The Times of Israel reported that “not one settler was indicted in 2024 for attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank,” underscoring what rights groups describe as a collapse in law enforcement under far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
The data also reveals a near-total breakdown in prosecution. In 2023, only about 10% of opened cases led to indictments.
In 2024, most investigations were either closed due to “lack of evidence” or “public interest,” or remain unresolved.
Documented crimes include physical assault, property destruction, live fire targeting Palestinians, threats, and public disorder. For example:
These figures reflect a sharp decline in investigations opened by Israeli police into colonizer-perpetrated crimes—not a reduction in actual violence:
- Assault investigations dropped from 83 in 2022 to just 30 in 2024—a 63% decrease in enforcement.
- Property damage investigations fell from 56 to 21—a 62% drop in police response.
- Incidents of colonizers opening fire on Palestinians declined from 13 to 4—a 69% reduction in documented investigations.
This drop does not indicate a decrease in colonizer violence. On the contrary, Israeli army records show over 700 colonizer attacks in 2025 alone.
The collapse in investigations underscores the systemic impunity granted to illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers operating across the occupied West Bank.
– Assault investigations dropped from 83 in 2022 to 30 in 2024—a 63% decrease in enforcement.
– Property damage investigations fell from 56 to 21—a 62% drop in police response.
– Investigations into colonizers opening fire on Palestinians declined from 13 to 4—a 69% reduction in documented cases.
These figures do not reflect a decrease in violence, but rather a collapse in enforcement. The Israeli army itself recorded over 700 colonizer attacks in 2025 alone, many involving arson, shootings, and coordinated assaults on Palestinian communities.
Human rights organizations, including Yesh Din, have long documented what they describe as a systemic failure by Israeli authorities to investigate or prosecute ideologically motivated violence by colonizers.
This failure, they argue, is not incidental—but structural, deliberate, and politically sanctioned.
Since the beginning of 2025, Israeli forces and paramilitary colonizers have killed 236 Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank—including 46 children and 7 women. Of those, 13 were killed by colonizers.
According to the Shireen Observatory, fatalities by district include: 80 in Jenin, 42 in Nablus, 30 in Tubas, 20 in Hebron, 19 in Ramallah, 17 in Tulkarem, 9 in Bethlehem, 9 in Jerusalem, 6 in Qalqilia, 3 in Salfit, and 1 in Jericho.
At dawn Thursday, illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers set fire to the Hajja Hamida Mosque, located between the towns of Deir Istiya and Kifl Haris, near Salfit. in the central part of the occupied West Bank.
On Wednesday, illegal Israeli colonizers carried out a number of attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, resulting in the injury of at least four citizens, including a woman in Bethlehem, Jericho, and Salfit. Occupation forces razed land and expropriated 38 dunams of land belonging to the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron in the southern West Bank.
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and acts of terror against civilian populations.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
Articles 53 and 147, prohibit the destruction of civilian property and classify pillage as a war crime.
