The Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission documented 1,965 attacks carried out by Israeli occupation forces and illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers across the West Bank in February, a scale the commission says reflects a coordinated campaign to displace Palestinians and entrench colonial control over their land.
Widespread Attacks Across the West Bank:
Commission head Moayyad Sha’ban said Israeli forces were responsible for 1,454 attacks, while illegal paramilitary colonizers carried out 511. The highest concentrations were recorded in:
- Hebron: 421 attacks.
- Nablus: 340.
- Ramallah and Al‑Bireh: 320.
- Jerusalem: 210.
The attacks included physical assaults, uprooting trees, burning fields, seizing property, and demolishing homes and agricultural structures.
Sha’ban said large areas of Palestinian land remain sealed off under the pretext of “security,” while colonizers are simultaneously enabled to expand inside those same zones.
He stressed that the pattern is “not a series of isolated incidents, but a systematic effort to empty the land of its people and impose a fully integrated colonial regime.”
Intensified Colonizer Violence and 1,314 Trees Destroyed:
Sha’ban described February as one of the peak months of colonizer violations targeting Palestinian villages and Bedouin communities. The 511 colonizer attacks were concentrated in:
- Hebron: 138.
- Nablus: 121.
- Ramallah: 98.
He said the data represents a dangerous phase of organized escalation, with colonizer violence now functioning as a field policy designed to undermine Palestinian livelihoods, terrorize rural communities, and create conditions that push residents toward forced displacement.
Colonizers carried out 355 acts of vandalism and theft, damaging wide areas of land. With army protection, they uprooted, destroyed, or poisoned 1,314 trees, including 1,054 olive trees, primarily in:
- Ramallah: 731.
- Bethlehem: 200.
- Hebron: 183.
- Nablus: 180.
- Tulkarem: 20.
Sha’ban said the coordination between the army and colonizer groups is now unmistakable, with colonizers initiating changes on the ground and the state later formalizing them through legal and administrative measures.
Attempts to Establish Five New Colonial Outposts:
Colonizers attempted to establish five new colonial outposts in February—two in Hebron, two in Nablus, and one in Tubas—most of them agricultural or grazing outposts.
Sha’ban said the surge reflects “clear political instructions” from the Israeli government to impose new facts on the ground and further fragment Palestinian geography.
Land Seizures: 2,022 Dunams Taken in February:
Israeli authorities seized 2,022 dunams of Palestinian land through a series of military orders, including eight seizure orders for “military purposes” covering 21.5 dunams.
The most significant action was a military expropriation order—No. 26/1—seizing 2,000.068 dunams of the archaeological site in Sebastia, described as the largest single heritage‑site takeover recorded in the occupied territories.
Demolitions: 122 Structures Razed, 49 Threatened:
Israeli forces carried out 72 demolition attacks in February, destroying 122 structures, including:
- 56 inhabited homes.
- 9 uninhabited homes.
- 34 agricultural structures.
- 18 sources of livelihood.
Demolitions were concentrated in:
- Jerusalem: 46 structures.
- Hebron: 38.
- Tubas: 9.
- Jenin: multiple sites.
Authorities also issued 49 demolition notices, primarily in:
- Bethlehem: 22.
- Hebron: 10.
- Jerusalem: 8.
- Tulkarem: 3.
- Tubas and Salfit: 2 each.
- Jenin and Ramallah: 1 each.
Colonial Planning: 22 New Master Plans Reviewed:
Israeli planning bodies reviewed 22 colonial master plans in February:
- 13 plans for illegal colonies in the West Bank.
- 4 plans for colonies inside Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries.
They approved 7 plans, advanced 5 more, and deposited plans for 48 units, while approving 642 new colonial housing units on 1,154.5 dunams of Palestinian land.
Jerusalem’s occupation municipality approved 3 additional plans and advanced 6 more, totaling 613 colonial units on 316.45 dunams.
Maps attached to the plans show approval for a major new colonial neighborhood for the Asfar/Metzad colony on land belonging to residents of Al‑Shuyukh in Hebron—509 units on 342 dunams.
Another plan approved 133 units for the Kfar Tapuach colony on land belonging to Yasuf village in Salfit—118 dunams.
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.
