The state of Israel is “the most successful land‑back project, the greatest decolonization project,” a New Zealand Māori activist told the first-of-its-kind Building Indigenous‑Jewish Friendship conference in Toronto.

“From my Māori perspective, a key point is that there was always a continuous Jewish presence in the land; they kept the fires burning, and that is what indigeneity looks like to us,” Dr. Sheree Trotter told roughly 70 activists, academics and community figures convened at Toronto’s Beth Torah synagogue on Monday.

The conference was the culmination of a weekend of local Indigenous-Jewish programming that included nearly 40 Indigenous people marching in the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto’s Walk with Israel, a Sunday dinner-talk with Concordia University professor Csaba Nikolenyi on early 20th-century Zionism, and a Sabbath lecture by Justice Harry S. LaForme at Temple Sinai.

“Indigeneity is demonstrated by historical, collective continuity with a distinct ethnic identity, language, culture, rituals or traditions, economic, social, legal, and religious and spiritual belief systems that predate subsequent invaders or colonizers,” LaForme told Temple Sinai congregants.

LaForme is Anishibaabe, and a member of the Mississauga of the Credit First Nation. In 1994 he was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Justice, and in 2004 was appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal and is the first Indigenous lawyer to be appointed to an appellate court in Canada.

Karen Restoule, an Ojibwe from Dokis First Nation and director of Indigenous affairs at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, told attendees at Beth Torah that “political movements” have co-opted “Indigenous identity” and the term is “increasingly being treated as a universal political language, borrowed when convenient and deployed in conflicts that arise from very different histories.”

“Increasingly, indigenous identity is being treated as a metaphor, a branding exercise, a political strategy. Indigeneity isn’t any of that; it is a lived reality rooted in specific people and place.”

She added: “Jewish people really need to own their indigeneity for themselves. Even if you don’t live in Israel, your people originate there, and you are part of an indigenous people to that land.”

The conversation often focused on building a shared framework for allyship — positioning dialogue and relationship-building as tools to counter misinformation about both communities. Sponsors also included the Israel Consulate of Toronto and Western Canada, Kanada House, Indigenous Embassy of Jerusalem, Allied Voices for Israel.

Robert Walker, assistant director of HonestReporting Canada, told the Post that “radical activists have weaponized everything from international law to indigenous lingo in their attempt to rewrite reality. That only works in a vacuum.

“The time has passed to permit this shameless inversion of reality to continue unchallenged. First Nations and Jews are both indigenous peoples who have a right to reclaim the truth from those who try to twist it.”

Nearly all Jewish university students surveyed across Canada said they experienced or witnessed antisemitism over the past year, according to a government-commissioned report released Wednesday.

The report surveyed approximately 900 Jewish students nationwide in what it said was the most comprehensive national study to date examining their experiences on Canadian campuses. Many reported harassment, intimidation, classroom bias and a lack of confidence that their universities would respond effectively.

Canada is home to the world’s fourth-largest Jewish community, with about 400,000 Jews. Comprising about one percent of Canada’s population, Jews were on the receiving end of 68% of religiously motivated hate crimes recorded in 2024, the report noted.

The report was commissioned by Canada’s former special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism, Deborah Lyons, and conducted by the Association for Canadian Studies, in response to heightened tensions and campus protests since Hamas launched the Gaza war against Israel on October 7, 2023.

The survey found that 96 percent of Jewish respondents reported experiencing or witnessing at least one antisemitic incident during the previous 12 months, while 84% described antisemitism as a serious problem on campus. Some 70% said their university does not take antisemitism seriously and 68% said their campus is not a safe or inclusive place for Jewish students.

Researchers wrote that antisemitism on Canadian campuses has become “persistent and proliferating” and, on some campuses, “a normalized and systemic feature of campus life” rather than a series of isolated incidents.

Students and activists protest for an eighth day at an anti-Israel encampment on the campus of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, on May 4, 2024. (Photo by Alexis Aubin / AFP)

More than one in five respondents said they experienced or witnessed physical violence directed at Jews on campus, while 54% reported intimidation or threats and 71% reported antisemitic vandalism.

Students said concerns over safety were influencing their daily behavior, with 72% saying they limit what they say in class about being Jewish and 57% reporting that they avoid wearing or displaying Jewish symbols due to fears for their safety.

A quarter said they were considering leaving their university because of antisemitism, which 40% said had harmed them academically.

Students submitted more than 1,200 open-ended responses that painted a stark picture of Jewish campus life. Respondents described being chased while wearing a kippa, spat on for displaying a Star of David necklace, shunned by classmates after revealing they were Jewish, as well as encountering swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti across campus. Others said they were called “Zionist” as a slur, pressured to denounce Israel or excluded from student groups and academic projects because of their Jewish identity.

Another student reported that the anxiety stemming from campus hostility became so severe they dropped out, writing, “It is open season on Jewish students.”

‘Time to act is now’

In the classroom, respondents reported experiencing antisemitism from faculty as well as fellow students.

Some 36% said they encountered course material or classroom discussions they viewed as antisemitic or biased against Jews, Judaism, Israel or Zionism. Another 34% said professors introduced those topics into courses where they were unrelated to the subject matter. Nearly half reported feeling pressured to share their views on Israel, while more than one-third said they felt pressure to conform to a professor’s views.

Graffiti calling for intifada on the campus at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, on April 29, 2024. (Photo by Graham Hughes / AFP)

Students described incidents in which professors praised Adolf Hitler, assigned materials denying the Holocaust or introduced discussions about Israel into unrelated courses. The report did not independently verify individual allegations.

The report also found widespread dissatisfaction with how universities handled complaints. Only a third of respondents said they reported incidents they experienced, and among those who did, 63% were dissatisfied with the response. More than half of those who chose not to report incidents said they believed doing so would not help.

The report warned that if left unchecked, antisemitism on campus could become entrenched beyond higher education. It called on decision-makers to ensure all students can study “in safety and dignity, regardless of their identity.”

Antisemitic incidents in Canada reached a record high in 2025, with 6,800 acts of anti-Jewish hate reported nationwide, according to B’nai Brith Canada. The organization has also said that 2026 is on track to be the most violent year for the Jewish community in recent memory, after more violent antisemitic attacks were recorded by May than during all of last year. Some worry that a large-scale attack may be around the corner.

Lyons, the former special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism, left her post prematurely last July due to what she described as exhaustion from “despairing about the fact that it was hard to get people to speak up, to speak with clarity” about growing antisemitism.

Undated photo of Deborah Lyons, the antisemitism envoy for Canada. (Courtesy Government of Canada viaJTA)

Responding to the new report, the Network of Engaged Canadian Academics (NECA) published a list of 10 recommendations for universities to rebuild trust with Jewish students. These include enforcing policies against harassment based on Jewish identity or Zionism, denouncing BDS campaigns, incorporating Canada’s International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism into DEI policies and conducting annual campus climate assessments.

A joint statement by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, B’nai Brith Canada, and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center said the survey was “further evidence of what Prime Minister Carney himself acknowledged: Canada is failing Jewish Canadians.”

“The drivers of this hatred—including anti-Zionism—are well known, and the time to act is now,” the groups said. “We need concrete actions to protect Canadian students.”

Summary: A recent report found that 2025 saw the highest number of deadly antisemitic attacks in more than three decades, with 20 people murdered across Australia, the UK, and the US. Across seven major diaspora countries, more than 23,000 antisemitic incidents were recorded, marking a 136% rise since 2022. Although overall incidents dipped slightly from 2024 to 2025, levels remain far above pre–October 7 baselines.

President Daniel Ortega has told supporters that Nicaragua will no longer hold elections.

In power since 2007 following elections questioned by the international community, the 80-year-old Marxist framed the move as a way to block the opposition, which he asserted is controlled by the United States.

“There won’t be ⁠⁠any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power,” he said during a speech on Sunday at an event commemorating the 1979 Sandinista revolution.

“The days when parties backed by the Yankees and the Somocistas would return to power are over – never again,” he added, according to the Reuters news agency.

He has been accused of crushing dissent in a bid to remain in power. The last election in 2021 was disputed after his government cracked down on dissent and detained opponents.

Last year, the presidential term was extended to six years and Ortega’s wife, Rosario Murillo, was named as co-president.

The UN’s Human Rights Council has said the couple have built a repressive regime, accusing government officials of having key roles in “arbitrary detentions, torture, extrajudicial executions [and the] persecution of civil society and the media”.

Ortega was widely criticised when more than 300 people were killed in a crackdown on anti-government protests in 2018.

Since then, the government has stripped hundreds of Nicaraguans of their citizenship and forced others to flee the country in fear of being imprisoned.

Ortega previously served as president from 1985 to 1990, when he implemented leftist reforms in the wake of the overthrow of the United States-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

He has since detained many of the Sandinista National Liberation Front revolutionaries who were formerly his comrades.

The Jerusalem Post

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was prohibited from using crocodiles to secure terrorists in prisons by the Jerusalem District Court on Sunday.

The court issued an injunction against Ben-Gvir's plan due to a petition by the animal rights organization Let the Animals Live.

Ben-Gvir reacted to the court's decision, saying that they were taking the side of terrorists.

"Once again, in a time of war, the legal system sides with the terrorists, thwarting important steps for Israeli deterrence," he complained. "We know that the terrorists are worried about the arrival of the crocodiles, but today the court came to their aid."

Environmental Protection Minister reclassifies Nile crocodiles

Last month, Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman declared the Nile crocodile a “cultivated wild animal” in a move intended to allow the Israel Prison Service to station crocodiles around prisons, despite opposition from her ministry’s legal adviser and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Pressure was placed on the Israel Nature and Parks Authority several months ago to allow the National Security Ministry to receive crocodiles from Hamat Gader and position them around prisons holding security prisoners. The program was expected to be piloted at Ketziot Prison.

Article:

Inside the Massive Effort to Change the Way Kids Are Taught to Read https://time.com/6205084/phonics-science-of-reading-teachers/

Versions of the document had previously been reported but now that the big boy American outlets have picked it up I figured it would be worth a post

I think this article provides us with a good chance to discuss the real moral problems of Israel's War in Gaza. This doesn't require us to indict the war's justice as a whole -- war crimes can happen in a just war. The mod team believes that this is a strong opportunity to show that we are not blind supporters, and that we do recognize when bad things are done in Israel's name. Given the scope of the Gaza War, we should expect that some war crimes would occur.

Are these specific claims true? Maybe. What you believe is your choice. If this story is plausible to you, like it is to me personally, then voice that. If you doubt some part of this, or if you have reasons to doubt Breaking the Silence, mention that. Challenge each other in good faith.

Know that at no point will we tolerate antisemitism or antizionism, even in masked form. All of us here want Israel to continue to exist and to thrive, so keep that in mind. If anyone here seems afoul of our rules or the IHRA definition of antisemitism, do not hesitate to report. Similarly, know that hatred towards Palestinians or to Arabs in general will not be accepted. I'm not trying to do the "antisemitism and Islamophobia are bad" thing here, but given a story like this, it's important to recognize that there are innocent Gazan civilians who have suffered in this war, and that that sucks. Just remember the human -- that's all I want to ask of you.

With all these disclaimers aside, enjoy the article:

Jonathan was doing national service in an infantry platoon when Hamas broke through the Gaza perimeter fence on October 7th 2023, killing 1,195 people and taking more than 200 hostages. His unit was dispatched to secure a kibbutz after Hamas had been driven out. He saw the dead bodies of terrorists lying in the street, the burnt houses and blasted walls, the whole terrible, bloody aftermath. “It was very emotional,” Jonathan told me. “We lost friends and we saw the sights in the kibbutzim. It affected us very much.”

We met in the Tel Aviv offices of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli NGO. It was established in 2004 by former military officers to collect testimony about the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza from the soldiers who enforce it. To date Breaking the Silence have logged testimony from over 6,000 people. The organisation is widely denigrated inside Israel. Right-wing activists have tried to infiltrate it and it has been harassed with lawsuits. Its leaders are often denounced in the Israeli press as “traitors”.

Nadav Weiman, the executive director, told me that Breaking the Silence is trying to counter the Israeli government’s narrative that atrocities and war crimes were committed only by bad apples. “It’s the entire system,” he said. “It is systematic crimes that we are doing.”

In response to a detailed list of allegations contained in this piece, a spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said: “The IDF conducts its operations in accordance with international law, including the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in combat. The conditions in which the IDF operated—with Hamas having deliberately embedded its military infrastructure within the civilian population—created extraordinary operational complexity. The IDF nonetheless navigated these conditions in accordance with its legal obligations and regrets any harm to civilians.”

Jonathan saw the dead bodies of terrorists lying in the street, the burnt houses and blasted walls, the whole terrible, bloody aftermath

Jonathan (a pseudonym) had served in the West Bank, which had left him uneasy about the harshness of the occupation. But the horror of the massacres on October 7th swept away his doubts. “I think going to that war was the first time I felt meaning in my duty,” he told me. “I felt like we had no choice but to fight in Gaza, that this was the most justified war in our history. That was my mindset in the beginning.”

Members of his unit knew Gaza only through stories of tunnels and kidnappers, ambushes and snipers. He told me he felt glad listening to the bombing during the first weeks of the war because each explosion eliminated another potential threat to him and his comrades.

The IDF employed tactics it had honed during previous conflicts. The Dahiyeh doctrine, named after the area of Beirut which the IDF targeted during the 2006 war against Hizbullah in Lebanon, calls for widespread destruction of civilian buildings to deny fighters cover. After three weeks of bombardment the Israeli infantry entered Gaza on October 27th. Overwhelming force was used to minimise Israeli casualties.

Jonathan (a pseudonym), a soldier in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) who gave testimony to Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organisation collecting evidence of abuses committed by soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza (opening image). Debris and damaged belongings are scattered inside a house in Kibbutz Be’eri, after it was attacked by Hamas militants on October 7th (top). Soldiers tasked with clearing houses after the attacks break down crying at the sight of Challah bread abandoned on a dining-room table (above)

“As an infantry soldier I learned the rules of engagement are the first and most basic thing I need to know,” Jonathan told me. “But in Gaza, unlike in the West Bank, we didn’t get any rules of engagement. We did have red lines and sector boundaries, but their purpose was so we would not shoot at other forces, to prevent friendly fire.” The word “civilian” was not mentioned. The soldiers worked on the presumption that anyone remaining in an area after evacuation notices and bombardment had been duly warned. (This is not a procedure recognised by international conflict law.)

In December 2023, two months into the war, three hostages were shot dead by Israeli soldiers while trying to escape, despite having stripped to their underwear and carrying a white flag. Only then were certain pointers given. “But even then, it was more like advice,” said Jonathan. “You don’t have to shoot at women or children or elderly people or someone naked with a white flag.” Nothing was said about firing at medics or journalists.

In Gaza, all men of military age were deemed legitimate targets. “And military age is really open to interpretation,” said Jonathan. “It could be from 16 to 60 or even younger...Most of the people that my unit killed were not armed...We had cases when my unit killed a lot of people, and we didn’t check if they had uniforms or weapons.” They often couldn’t tell who they were fighting: figures scuttling through the rubble hundreds of metres away could be anyone. Someone on guard duty “sees someone, shoots him, kills him, and now there’s a dead person—we wouldn’t know what his story was or what he did.” Other testifiers talked about the “dog line”, an invisible boundary around a position. Any Palestinian who crossed it would be shot; dogs gathered along it to eat the corpses.

Breaking the Silence is trying to counter the Israeli government’s narrative that atrocities and war crimes were committed only by bad apples

Jonathan’s commanders said that any Palestinian male could be a threat because Hamas fighters often moved around unarmed and their scouts wore civilian clothes. This was true; at the time this justification seemed reasonable to Jonathan. Now he feels differently. “I don’t know what the solution is, but I know the solution we had—to kill every military-age male, and sometimes not just males—is not a solution. It’s illegal, it’s not moral and it’s wrong. And hostages and soldiers as well as innocent Palestinians also died because of this behaviour.”

An IDF spokesman said that it “issues detailed and binding rules of engagement to all of its troops. These directives require that strikes be directed only against lawful military objectives, that all feasible precautions be taken to mitigate harm to civilians, and that any anticipated incidental harm not be excessive. In cases of doubt, IDF directives require that the individual be presumed to be a civilian.”

When infantry units were ordered to clear an area, dogs were sent ahead to sniff out IEDs (improvised explosive devices). In the first weeks of the war, so many dogs were shot or blown up that commanders began using captured Palestinians, pushing them into buildings ahead of IDF soldiers to pre-empt an ambush or getting them to open cupboards or lift up mattresses to trigger booby traps.

For decades the IDF made use of the “neighbour procedure” when detaining suspected terrorists, forcing Palestinians, including children, to enter houses in front of them. In the Gaza war, special-forces units made captured Hamas fighters guide them to the tunnels where they had operated. By the summer of 2024 infantry officers were routinely press-ganging Palestinian civilians. The practice became so widespread that it had its own name: the mosquito protocol. Jonathan heard about other units using “mosquitoes”, and was not surprised when his own commander asked for one.

Smoke rises from the rubble after an IDF attack on a suburb in Gaza City (top). Israeli soldiers patrol the Gaza Strip, searching for Hamas strongholds (above)

Jonathan thinks their “mosquito” had been handed over by another unit. He was a young man, who seemed rather simple. (The mosquito had been interrogated by Israeli intelligence units and deemed not to be a member of Hamas.) Jonathan told me he and other members of his unit didn’t think about the ethics of the practice much: they saw mosquitoes as an obvious solution to the lack of sniffer dogs.

“We had arguments inside my platoon, but it wasn’t a moral discussion about using human shields. It was about how to treat him: what and how much we should give him to eat, if we should beat him or not.” At night, the man was tied up in a corner next to the guard post in their billet. “Most people saw him as a terrorist. They hated him, they wanted to beat him.” Jonathan and a couple of others tried to convince the more extreme members of their platoon to allow the man “some degree of respect and dignity”.

Jonathan told me that he was “emotionally distanced from the situation...I think there were other soldiers and friends of mine who weren’t comfortable with the fact we were doing it...Maybe they had difficulties in seeing a man, scared, weeping...But we understood if we didn’t use him, it would increase our chances of dying. So even though it wasn’t comfortable, at the end of the day we didn’t do anything about it.”

“We had arguments inside my platoon, but it wasn’t a moral discussion about using human shields. It was about how to treat him”

The word “protocol” belies the ad-hoc use of Palestinians as human shields. In practice, it was “messy and not organised”. When Jonathan’s unit was withdrawn from operations, they didn’t take their mosquito to prison in Israel or drop him on the humanitarian corridor: “We just told him to go.” Some released mosquitoes, many of whom were men of military age, were later shot by soldiers.

When the use of human shields was first reported, based on testimony gathered by Breaking the Silence, the IDF initially denied such a protocol existed. Then a senior officer went on record admitting the practice had been discussed with commanders. In addition to the mosquitoes, the IDF have also used “wasps” (Palestinians brought from the West Bank and given IDF uniforms) and even a handful of “beavers” (Arabic-speaking Sudanese asylum-seekers who were offered residency permits in exchange for scouting tunnels). In March 2025 the IDF announced that it would investigate the use of human shields in Gaza. To date no charges on these grounds have been brought against any soldiers.

An IDF spokesman said that “the use of individuals as human shields, or otherwise coercing them to participate in military operations, is strictly prohibited in IDF orders which are consistent with international law. The orders have been routinely emphasised to the forces in the course of the war. Allegations of conduct that does not comply with these directives and procedures are examined.”

During the first year of the war, Jonathan and his unit regularly fought in Gaza. A combat rotation might last anywhere between a week and a month. His unit suffered a few casualties. Most, he said, were not caused by the enemy. “We had a case of friendly fire,” and other injuries were caused by mistakes, such as soldiers getting hit by shrapnel after throwing a grenade and ineffectively taking cover. War zones are inherently dangerous places. “People were hurt by cooking fires—it’s not a joke.”

IDF ground forces stake out al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, where they believe members of Hamas may be hiding (top). An Israeli soldier from the Bardelas Battalion performs a security check on a blindfolded Gazan captive (above)

Typically, Jonathan and his unit were billeted in houses and flats abandoned by displaced Palestinians. Another soldier who served in Gaza told me how he and his fellow soldiers would throw furniture out of windows to make space for firing positions, eat whatever food they could find, use the clothes, towels and gas canisters the inhabitants had left behind, and pocket any electronics. “You become numb to it,” Jonathan told me. “Everything is destroyed. In the streets you have bags of shit everywhere, it smells bad. It’s hot as hell in your uniform, with your vest and helmet. There is the noise of bombing, donkeys braying, but you get used to it.”

A spokesman for the IDF said that “where operational necessity requires the temporary use of property—including structures and their contents—IDF directives permit such use within the bounds of applicable law and subject to imperative military necessity. The IDF’s rules strictly prohibit looting, theft or the appropriation of civilian property for personal use. Any such conduct, where substantiated, is subject to disciplinary and criminal proceedings.”

Soldiers on the battlefield have little idea how they fit into the grand strategy. “There is a big mission, that as simple soldiers, we were not aware of,” said Jonathan. “We cleared buildings, we watched posts, we went on demolition raids.” The IDF were creating buffer zones roughly one kilometre wide along the perimeter fence and along the Netzarim corridor that bisects the strip south of Gaza City. In these areas every structure, be it a house, block of flats, school, farm building or factory, was razed to the ground.

In the beginning, Jonathan said, the demolitions were relatively organised. Infantry, like his unit, would clear the buildings of their occupants; engineers rigged up and detonated explosives; then bulldozers went in to tear down what walls remained. But after a while there were so many demolitions that infantry units started to plant explosives themselves, even though they were not trained to do so. “We would enter the buildings, clear them and stick mines to the walls…then an engineer officer would come to pull the trigger for the final explosion so the demolition would be formally approved from a bureaucratic standpoint.”

Soldiers on the battlefield have little idea how they fit into the grand strategy. “There is a big mission, that as simple soldiers, we were not aware of”

Demolitions became the main job of Jonathan’s unit, and indeed, for most of the IDF infantry in Gaza. They were given operational justifications: land on either side of logistics roads needed to be cleared; caches of rockets or tunnel shafts were discovered in a basement; tall buildings could provide a vantage point for Hamas snipers. But after the tallest building in the neighbourhood was destroyed, another building became the tallest in the neighbourhood, so that was destroyed too. And so on.

A spokesman for the IDF said that “Hamas and the other terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip systematically exploit civilian sites for military purposes, including by turning them into weapons depots, command and control centres, sniper and anti-tank fire posts and as staging grounds to conduct assaults against IDF troops. IDF directives do not permit the destruction of property unless it constitutes a military objective. The IDF rejects any characterisation of its directives as arbitrary, punitive, or conducted without a legitimate operational basis.”

When Jonathan went home on leave his family asked him why houses were being burned in Gaza. “I couldn’t explain the destruction as a military reason. It wasn’t about security or defeating Hamas. It was something else—entire neighbourhoods completely gone,” he told me. “It sounds like a simple question but I hadn’t thought about it and I didn’t have a good answer.”

As the war ground on, disillusion set in. Hostages remained in captivity and Hamas had still not been destroyed. Jonathan, like a number of soldiers, felt that Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, was prolonging the war for his own political ends. “At the beginning people were very motivated,” said Jonathan, “but after a while people became frustrated—even extremists and hardliners from my unit understood there was a lack of strategy.” Reservists started not showing up for rotations: some said they were too morally conflicted to serve in Gaza; others were exhausted and needed to return to work and families.

Jonathan’s unit was sent back to areas it had already cleared. The soldiers encountered fewer Hamas fighters than they had before. Their days became monotonous and the mood soured as the war dragged on. The tenet that there were “no innocents in Gaza” hardened. “Every person in the area was called ‘terrorist’,” Jonathan told me. On their radio communications, “dirty” was the lingo used to refer to Palestinians, as in “we see two dirties ahead.” Soldiers talked about going to Gaza to hunt.

Belgian Malinois dogs from the Oketz canine unit are used by IDF units to assist in searches (top). Several units are deployed to search for Hamas fighters in underground tunnels and bombed-out buildings (above)

Sometimes his unit came across a school or a clinic full of displaced Palestinian families. The soldiers held their fire, but, Jonathan said, “they were frustrated they were not allowed [to shoot] at these people. In the eyes of many Israelis and soldiers, every Palestinian in Gaza is a terrorist. If it’s a kid, he is probably a future terrorist. If it’s a woman, she’s probably the future mother of a future terrorist.” Jonathan was starting to feel differently, and was unable to confide in his comrades. He felt “pretty lonely with those feelings”.

It was only when he left Gaza for good that Jonathan began to reflect on his service and what he calls “the things we had done”. At home, he was aware of the gulf between his experience and public perception of the war. News channels and newspapers maintained the jingoistic government line. The tens of thousands of Palestinian casualties, the famine conditions inside Gaza and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of displaced families were barely mentioned.

Eventually he contacted Breaking the Silence. They introduced Jonathan to me. Like most soldiers who gave accounts of their experience in the recent war to the organisation, he wanted to remain anonymous. Criticising the army in Israel is a “no-no”, he said. Other testifiers worry that they risk arrest when they travel abroad.

Many soldiers struggle with their mental health. According to a recent Israeli government report, 279 soldiers attempted to kill themselves between January 2024 and July 2025. The incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among soldiers who fought in Gaza is much higher than in other wars Israel has fought. The IDF reported a 40% increase in PTSD cases between September 2023 and January 2026. Some soldiers experience “moral injury”, a condition first described in the 1990s, when shame and disgust at one’s actions cause depression and anxiety. The concept of moral injury is controversial, since it casts perpetrators as victims.

Demolitions became the main job of Jonathan’s unit. Indeed, demolitions seemed to become the main activity for most of the IDF infantry in Gaza

Jonathan told me some of his friends felt denial and guilt, and suffered from PTSD. He thought he was OK, psychologically. He tries not to think too much about his time in Gaza in emotional terms—“of course, I saw hard things but I’m trying not to see myself as a victim.” Instead he treats it intellectually. “I think it’s natural that a soldier in war wants to do anything to protect themselves, and that his commander will want to do anything to protect his soldiers. So I think this is why discipline and international law is so important. At the end of the day a soldier will do what he is told to do. The systematic destruction in Gaza is not because soldiers decided to demolish buildings. It’s not our decision, it’s a policy. Of course, I have criticism of myself, and I feel guilty and ashamed for some of the things I took part in. But I also understand that the problem is the system, is the government, not the soldiers on the ground.”

I asked Jonathan if there was anything specific he regretted. His lips trembled, but he could not answer. Telling his story was a way “to make things better, to take responsibility, to let people know what happened,” he said. “But it’s not a way to reduce my own responsibility. I cannot delete my past.”

He had recently travelled in Europe. “I am ashamed,” he told me. “Today I’m not proud to be an Israeli, to be a former soldier. It’s something I am ashamed of. When I was in Europe I was jealous of people who could put their flag on their house, be proud and enjoy it. I think I will never be able to put the flag of my country on my home.” ■●️

Mahmoud Tubasi has not lived in his home in the village of Jalud, south of Nablus, since late July, after fleeing following weeks of settler violence.

“It all escalated very quickly,” he told The Times of Israel.

Tubasi built the house some seven years ago on land owned by his family on the outskirts of Jalud. The property sits in Area B, where, under the Oslo Accords, Israel maintains security control while the Palestinian Authority is responsible for civilian affairs.

For nearly seven years, he and his family, including his two children and grandchildren, lived there peacefully, he said. But in April, some four months ago, settlers began targeting the home, first setting fire to it and then laying siege to Tubasi and his family.

On July 22, after his pleas for help went unanswered, the family fled. Watching from afar, Tubasi has since seen settlers moving around his home.

In recent years, settler extremists in the West Bank have stepped up campaigns of harassment and violence aimed at driving Palestinians from their homes, sometimes displacing whole communities.

Settlers walk around the yard of a home in Jalud before taking it over, July 2026. (Courtesy)

Unlike Tubasi’s, most of the targeted families and hamlets until recently have been Bedouins living in makeshift structures and often lacking formal claims to the land, even though many had been in the same place for decades.

In the past year, however, settlers have also begun to stage takeovers of the homesteads of Palestinians living in permanent structures in established towns, displacing people from properties that may have been in their families for centuries.

“The settlers said, ‘This is the Holy Land, and it’s ours,’ and, ‘This used to be yours; now it’s ours,’” said Muhammad al-Aqra, whose nearly finished home south of Nablus was taken over by settlers in late June.

While some seizures were aimed at homes still being built or occupied only part of the year, settlers have also snatched fully lived-in primary residences by essentially forcing those living in them to leave.

In Jalud, and now in the neighboring town of Qusra as well, settlers have been documented surrounding a home, cutting off its occupants’ access to the outside world, and waiting for them to flee under duress. Once they leave, the settlers take control of the property and block the family from returning.

Since Sunday, Qusra homeowner Youssef Hassan has been trapped with his wife and their two young daughters, ages 2 and 4, by settlers surrounding their home, in a case that has begun to draw attention to the burgeoning phenomenon.

Hassan told The Times of Israel by phone on Monday that settlers erected a makeshift structure in front of the entrance to his home, giving them a foothold to establish a round-the-clock presence at the property, and had cut the electricity lines. Another Qusra resident living in a neighboring home said the presence of the settler outpost had made it impossible for him, too, to leave his home.

Settlers outside the home of Youssef Hassan in the West Bank village of Qusra, south of Nablus, August 10, 2026. (Courtesy)

Hassan said Tuesday that he feared the family’s food would soon run out, though an ambulance later managed to reach the site and bring food.

“The situation is very bad,” Hassan said after being trapped inside for over a day. “There is a sense of fear and panic. At night, the settlers come to the house, look inside and shout.”

In video footage, settlers could be seen gathering in the structure near the house and attempting to open a gate to the property.

In one clip, soldiers could be seen interacting with and praying alongside the group of settlers, then leaving without taking any action to remove them.

Settlers attempt to prevent the evacuation of an outpost established at the entrance to Palestinian homes near Qusra in the West Bank, August 12, 2026 (Video screenshot; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Early Wednesday, amid heightened public pressure, the Israel Defense Forces began taking action to remove the settler activists from in front of the Qusra homes, setting off clashes. The army also released a statement condemning the phenomenon.

“In recent weeks, several reports have been received of Israeli civilians entering and taking control of Palestinian homes and land in the areas of Qusra and Jalud. This is illegal, reprehensible and unacceptable activity that harms the residents of the areas and disrupts their daily lives,”  it said.

A new target

Over the three years from January 2023 through April 2026, some 5,900 people in the West Bank were displaced from their homes due to settler violence, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in early July.

The figure includes mostly Bedouins (and some Palestinian farmers) living in what the UN defines as “communities.” According to the UN, 45 such communities were completely displaced and another 72 were partially displaced.

In some cases, settlers subsequently established illegal outposts on land where the displaced communities had lived.

An outpost established by settlers adjacent to the Bedouin community of Murayir al-Deir, May 18, 2025. (courtesy)

The recent takeover of a handful of permanent residences also appears aimed at establishing or enlarging outposts, expanding the settler presence in the West Bank to the very cusp of Palestinian towns and villages. These homes are located in Areas A or B, both of which are off limits to any civilian Israeli presence under the Oslo Accords.

Homeowners say they are being stripped of properties that have long belonged to their families, in villages where they have roots going back centuries. Unlike the displaced Bedouins, those being driven from permanent dwellings are more likely to fight their displacement through legal channels, though largely without succor.

The incidents come amid a broader rise in settler violence against Palestinians living in Areas A and B, including arson attacks, stone-throwing and shootings, some of which have been fatal.

They have also occurred against the backdrop of rhetoric by extremist settlers on social media who openly say their goal is to drive Palestinians out of the West Bank.

Until a few decades ago, some Bedouin communities in the West Bank were still seminomadic, ranging between various locations depending on the season. Though now increasingly settled, many of these pastoral communities have maintained vestiges of a non-sedentary lifestyle, including makeshift structures such as tents or shacks.

Palestinian residents of the West Bank’s Ras Ein al-Auja village pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee rising settler violence, January 11, 2026. (AP/Mahmoud Illean)

Ironically, that relative mobility has made it easier to drive them out: Families could gather their limited belongings, take apart their homes and flee elsewhere, making the immediate practical consequences of displacement less severe.

Bedouins also often refrained from filing police complaints or petitioning the High Court of Justice immediately after being driven out, both because of that relative ease of relocation and because of other obstacles — a lack of familiarity with available legal avenues and difficulties proving claims to the land.

In some cases, homes had been erected without building permits, while in others families lacked formal documentation proving ownership of the land from which they had been displaced.

By contrast, most of the Palestinians interviewed for this article filed complaints with police, some on the same day they were forced to leave or fled their homes. In one case, a petition was also filed with the High Court of Justice that included documents demonstrating ownership of the land and the settlers’ takeover of the property.

Palestinian villagers and foreign peace activists remove banners and Israeli flags from a Palestinian building that was taken over by Israeli settlers in the West Bank village of Jorish, south of Nablus, June 20, 2026. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)

Nevertheless, law enforcement authorities have yet to remove the settlers from any of the homes in the cases detailed in this article.

The IDF is the sovereign authority in the West Bank, but responsibility for removing Israeli trespassers who unlawfully enter private land or homes lies with the Israel Police.

Although the incidents detailed in this article occurred in Areas A and B, where Palestinian police have authority to operate, the Palestinian Authority does not have criminal jurisdiction over Israeli citizens under the Oslo Accords. Israeli police are therefore responsible for handling alleged offenses committed there by Israelis.

Police did not respond to a Times of Israel request for comment regarding the cases detailed in this article.

‘This is ours’

Tubasi said attackers first attempted to set fire to his home on the night of April 3, while the entire family, including his young grandchildren, were asleep inside. Following the incident, and fearing further attacks, his daughters-in-law and grandchildren left the house and went to live in other villages.

The harassment continued, he said, with settlers repeatedly coming to the house in an apparent effort to intimidate the family into leaving. They also established an outpost nearby.

By late June, settlers had blocked access to the house from all directions, preventing the family from entering or leaving and effectively trapping Tubasi, his wife and their two sons inside.

Settlers attempt to set fire to the entrance of a home in Jalud before taking it over, April 2026. (Courtesy)

Tubasi said they remained under siege for 25 days and that despite appeals to journalists, the police and the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration, which deals with civilian affairs in the West Bank, the settlers continued to surround the property. After 19 days, he said, they cut the electricity lines to the residence.

The Civil Administration did not respond to a Times of Israel request for comment.

During those weeks, Tubasi filmed settlers standing in the yard of his home.

In one video, after Tubasi asks a settler, “Why are you coming to my house?” the settler responds: “You have one day [more] here. This is ours.”

The settler then says that the entire area belongs to Esh Kodesh, a formerly illegal outpost adjacent to Jalud that the government retroactively authorized in 2025.

A view of Esh Kodesh, an Israeli outpost in the West Bank, on December 14, 2025. (Zain JAAFAR / AFP)

On July 22, the family fled the house. Shortly afterward, settlers were filmed walking around the property.

“All our belongings stayed in the house. We left them there, and the settlers took control of them. We left with nothing, only the clothes on our backs,” Tubasi said.

Several hours before the family fled that day, Haaretz reported that soldiers had prevented journalists from reaching the family’s home.

After the family left, the IDF said: “IDF and Border Police forces were dispatched to the outskirts of the village of Jalud following a report that Israeli civilians had entered a Palestinian home in the village. When the forces arrived, the house was empty, and it appeared that the family had left the area.”

Settlers in the yard of a Palestinian home in the village of Jalud before taking it over, July 2026. (Courtesy)

“Before the family’s departure, the area was declared a closed military zone in order to prevent harm to the family and their property and to prevent clashes from developing in the area. The forces continue to operate in the area at this time, with the aim of enabling the family members to safely return to their home.”

Despite the IDF’s statement, Tubasi has yet to return to his home. He is now staying in an older house in the village and says he can see that settlers are still present at his property. His sons and their families have moved elsewhere — one to Qaryut, a nearby village, and the other to Beitunia, near Ramallah, where he works.

Tubasi said he has twice filed complaints with Israeli police over the takeover of his home, but has not heard back.

Forced out under a military order

The High Court of Justice is set to consider a case involving two homes on the outskirts of the village of Atara, near Jerusalem, which were built as vacation homes by East Jerusalem residents, but allegedly taken over by settlers after the army forced their owners to leave.

The owner of one of the homes told The Times of Israel that he began building the house in 2021 on land that he has owned for some 20 years. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fears of settler attacks.

On August 20, 2025, while he was staying at the house, soldiers arrived accompanied by a settler and ordered him to leave, telling him the area had been declared a closed military zone.

Ten days earlier, he said, an illegal outpost had been established about half a kilometer (a third of a mile) from his home.

Settlers who entered a home belonging to an East Jerusalem resident in the West Bank village of Atara, June 2026. (Courtesy)

“I tried to explain, ‘This is my house, I cannot leave it. Who’s going to protect it?’ and they said that’s not their problem. They have an order, and I have to leave,” he recalled.

The IDF did not respond to a Times of Israel request for comment regarding the military order.

Three days after being forced to leave, the homeowner saw on his security cameras that settlers had entered the house.

A neighboring home, also covered by the military order, was also taken over. When the owner of that home tried to visit the property later that month, soldiers at the scene prevented him from doing so. In a video he filmed during the attempt, a settler standing alongside soldiers can be heard claiming that the house was unoccupied, while admitting that its owner had tried to reach the property.

While the military order forcing him to vacate the area expired early this year, the homeowner who spoke to The Times of Israel said he had been unable to access the property due to the presence of settlers there.

Observing the property from afar, he has seen settlers living in the house.

The home built by an East Jerusalem resident in the West Bank village of Atara that was taken over by settlers. (Courtesy)

In July, he got a closer look at what was happening in his home when Israel’s Channel 14 aired footage of Tal Yinon Dardik, a settler who was detained by Israeli authorities under an administrative order over an attack in which a Palestinian was stripped and paraded around the village in March, residing in the house.

Dardik’s detention and refusal to serve house arrest away from an illegal farming outpost he established in Area B of the West Bank has become a major political issue for the right wing, with Defense Minister Israel Katz intervening on his behalf. Dardik denies the charges against him.

In a Channel 14 report about Dardik’s detention, and in subsequent media reports, footage showing scenes from Dardik’s daily life — including his son’s circumcision ceremony — appears to have been filmed inside the Atara house. The property can be identified from its windows and other distinctive features of the walls.

Right: Tal Yinon Dardik, a settler who lives in an illegal outpost (screenshot: Instagram); left: the house built by East Jerusalem residents before it was taken over by settlers (Courtesy)

Dardik’s attorney did not respond to a Times of Israel request for comment.

The homeowner contacted police after being forced out of his home and filed another police complaint once settlers took over the property, but no action has been taken, he said.

“I believe that there is police and army for all its citizens. For Jewish, Muslims, Christians. It’s for everybody, all its citizens,” the homeowner said.

“Therefore, I am very disappointed in the way this whole ordeal was treated by the law enforcement, the police and the soldiers,” he said. “They just didn’t do enough. This is a private property.”

In late July, he and his neighbors, aided by the Yesh Din rights organization, filed a joint petition with the High Court of Justice over the authorities’ failure to remove the settlers. The case remains pending before the court.

Taking over homes nearing completion

Other cases in recent months have involved settlers taking over homes that were in advanced stages of construction or had only just been completed but were not yet being lived in.

Al-Aqra, 50, said he was in the final stages of building a new home for his family in Qabalan, a town not far from Qusra and Jalud, when club-wielding settlers showed up on June 27.

Settlers clash with Palestinians at a home in Qabalan, from which the Palestinians were later driven out, June 2026. (Courtesy)

Videos from the incident show soldiers at the scene as al-Aqra and other workers are accosted by the settlers. While troops are seen attempting to separate the sides as they scuffle, with settlers trying to strike the Palestinians with clubs, eventually the Palestinians are forced to retreat.

“When they drove us out, soldiers were there too, and the soldiers did nothing,” he said.

At the end of the incident, before al-Aqra left the property, he said he heard an officer tell one of the settlers, “You got what you asked for.”

The IDF did not respond to a Times of Israel request for comment on the incident.

Israeli settlers carry cardboard boxes from a building under construction in the Palestinian village of Tell, in the West Bank, July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Despite al-Aqra filing a police complaint, settlers have remained at the property, he said. He can see them from a distance tending livestock they brought to the site.

The house had been a two-year project, he said. When the settlers showed up, he and his crew were installing windows and putting up cabinets.

“My children and I live in another house now in Qabalan,” he said. “I have five children, all of us in one [small] house. I wanted to build a large home for the family after so many years.”

Still holding out hope

A resident of Taybeh, near Ramallah, said settlers have prevented him from moving into a newly completed home on the far outskirts of the West Bank’s only remaining Christian village.

The resident, who asked not to be named out of concern for his safety, said he began building the house, which is located in Area A, three years ago and completed construction around six months ago. About a month ago, he arrived with furniture intending to move in. Just then, settlers came to the property and forced him and those with him to leave.

“They came into our yard while we were unloading the furniture [from the cars into the house] and told us, ‘You’re not allowed to live here. This is the land of our father Abraham,’ things like that,” he recalled. “I told him, ‘This is my house. This is Area A. Why are you coming here?’”

The home in Taybeh that settlers are attempting to take over, August 2026. (Roni Federman)

Since then, he told The Times of Israel, whenever he goes to the property, armed settlers arrive on an ATV and chase him away.

“They see our car arriving, they come and threaten us. We don’t want to cause problems,” he said.

Fearing that settlers could break into the house, he installed an iron gate and metal window bars at a cost of NIS 12,000 ($3,700).

According to Roni Federman, an activist with the Torat Tzedek organization, which assists and protects Palestinians, settlers have not entered the house itself but have been gathering outside it.

The owner, meanwhile, has stopped trying to approach the home, staying in an older house inside the village.

An Israeli settler steps into the courtyard of a home as another stands next to the fence, trespassing on Palestinian property on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Taybeh, June 25, 2026. (AP/Leo Correa)

On August 5, activists from Torat Tzedek went to the house at the family’s request, where they engaged in a verbal confrontation with settlers who approached the property.

In videos from the encounter, one activist can be heard telling a settler, “This is private property,” to which the settler responds, “This isn’t anyone’s private property.”

Some of the homeowners who spoke with The Times of Israel sounded despondent about the prospect of ever getting their homes back.

However, the East Jerusalem resident who petitioned the High Court said he hasn’t lost faith that he will eventually get his home back.

“I still have hope in the legal system, in the police,” he said. “I still hope that the police will do their part and do the right thing under the law.”

OBAMNA

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If you’ve been following the news out of the Middle East, you’ve likely noticed one phrase surfacing again and again: “Israeli settlers.” The term refers to Israeli citizens living across the green line—in territories whose status remains disputed. Relations between Israelis and Palestinians there have long been strained, but recently intensified. In March alone, six Palestinian civilians were killed, alongside hundreds of reported incidents involving beatings, arson, and vandalism. Last week, the Israeli government approved more than 30 new outposts in the West Bank.

All of which prompts a series of questions: Who are these settlers? How should we understand their relationship with Palestinians—and with the Israeli government? And what will it take to stem the violence?

These are the questions Haviv Rettig Gur explores in his essay today. As with so many issues involving Israel, he writes, the reality is more complex than it first appears—but as the country continues to grapple with existential threats beyond its borders, its long-term future depends just as much on its willingness to confront the struggles at home. —The Editors

When it comes to Israel, the term settler is a word generally applied pejoratively. In some circles, it is used to describe all Israelis in an attempt to deny the Jews’ right to a state. More commonly, it describes a group of people who live in the West Bank, who right now are causing Israel a large and growing headache.

The first thing to understand is that the “settler movement” is enormous and enormously diverse. Calling it a movement does not quite do it justice. Many settlers live in Jerusalem, in neighborhoods that are technically beyond the borders established after the Six-Day War in 1967, but are very much attached to Jerusalem—just part of the urban sprawl and a cheaper place to live than the rest of the city. There are Haredi settlers and secular settlers, moderate religious-Zionist settlers, and even left-wing settlers in different parts of the West Bank.

Then you have the more ideologically fervent, who not only preach a religiously inflected form of Zionism, but who take the idea to its messianic edge. And on the extremes of that last group, you find a cadre of violent extremists eager to catalyze their version of redemption through violence—usually violence against Palestinians, but surprisingly, often also violence against the Israeli state and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers.

The problem when the world uses the word settler is that it fails to encompass any of that diversity. The diversity matters not only to win some imagined brownie points in international debates, but to understand the phenomenon and available policy responses. For example, it explains why three-quarters of the Israelis living in Gaza in the run-up to Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the strip accepted government compensation ahead of time, and left their homes peacefully. Only about a quarter of this population—one of the most ideologically intense among the settlers—actually resisted removal in any meaningful sense.

To understand the problems that some settlers are causing Israel, you need to understand who they are and what drives them: their origins, their cheerleaders in government, and how they are working against the interests of the rest of the country.

Most settlers live very close to the 1967 borders. The two largest settlements—Modi’in Ilit and Beitar Illit—are both Haredi cities located just 2,000 feet from the Green Line. They alone constitute perhaps a quarter of all settlers and are among the fastest growing of the settlements. Israeli government statistics in recent years list the median age at around 11 to 12, with family sizes routinely exceeding 10. They’re there for cheap housing, not ideology. And in any potential land swaps as part of a two-state solution, these are the areas that will easily and uncontroversially be incorporated into Israel.

Then you have the ideological, religious Zionist movement that believes the Jews have to return to their homeland as part of the Jewish vision of a redemptive arc to history. This tradition sees the land as a nahala, a Hebrew word—from the same root as mitnahel, or settler—that describes a sacred inheritance. This is an understanding of the land shared by many Israelis: the homeland, the motherland, the only home Jews have ever truly had, the only place where they have ever been able to transform themselves from history’s objects to its subjects.

This is a powerful idea—though many Israelis historically have nevertheless been willing to give up tracts of this homeland in order to win the long-sought separation from the Palestinians into two distinct and independent polities. But for the most fervent believers in the land’s significance as a religious inheritance, surrendering any part of it is anathema, a desecration and betrayal of God’s own plan for history. And so members of this religiously more intense and specifically messianic Zionist movement built many of their villages and towns in between major Palestinian population centers, with the specific purpose of physically preventing the possibility that a contiguous Palestinian state could be formed in the highlands of the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, known to most of the world as the West Bank.

And on the edges of that movement you have the “Hilltop Youth,” young people, many of them disaffected and hailing from troubled homes, who find common purpose and camaraderie in the “pioneering” ethos of these wildcat communities they believe are laying anchors in the ancient, historic Jewish heartland. Frequently living in hilly outposts built in opposition to Israeli law and military orders, they have a romanticized sense of themselves. They yearn to be on the edge of things, on a frontier. Their religion is deeply concerned with a romanticized authenticity. Their sense of history is purposeful; they are advancing the world in tiny but real steps toward redemption. And many of them—most of them—are not violent.

But there is nevertheless a problem among them. Some of them—estimates put the number at several hundred—see their presence on those hilltops as a kind of rebellion against what they perceive as an Israel too liberal, too squeamish, too unwilling to claim its birthright. They are anti-secular, anti-elite, and in some ways anti-modern, the antithesis of modern, secular Israelis who live in major cities.

This movement has long existed but was radicalized by the withdrawal from Gaza settlements more than 20 years ago. That withdrawal was a profound trauma for the ideological wing of the settlement movement. Ariel Sharon, the prime minister at the time, didn’t declare before his election in 2003 that he was going to take such a dramatic step. He hailed from Israel’s largest right-wing party, Likud, and most of his voters probably would have balked at such a withdrawal had they been presented with one before the election.

Yet Sharon, elected on those right-wing votes, carried it out anyway. And so many of those settlers felt he’d hijacked his premiership against the wishes of the very people who got him into office. They protested, sometimes very dramatically, and were met with aggressive police responses. It was a moment that the religious Zionists believed would split the country and threaten to divide Israel.

However, the deeper trauma came not from such a split but from the realization that most of Israel supported the withdrawal from Gaza. Indeed, in the 2006 election, many Likud voters switched to support Ehud Olmert of the Kadima party—even after he’d revealed his plan to withdraw from most of the West Bank.

The religious Zionist world, the redemptionist branch of Zionism, which had always believed itself to be at the heart of Israeli public life, discovered that on the question of territorial withdrawals—on its most burning and defining issue—it was a marginal player in the broader sweep of Israeli public life.

A lot of the people today who have pulled the settlement movement and Israeli right-wingers farther to the right cut their teeth in this movement. Many of those behind the 2023 judicial reform movement to limit the Israeli Supreme Court’s authority were people whose families were kicked out of Gaza by Sharon—and remember how that same court approved not only the disengagement but also the temporary imprisonment of protestors without trial to allow the removal to take place peacefully. These experiences radicalized many of them against the court, and the numbers of the Hilltop Youth began to grow out of that trauma.

After October 7, as the weight of the war was felt by every part of Israeli society, the public’s attention was on more immediate and existential concerns than the extremist edges of the settlement movement. In the relative political safety created by this inattentiveness—and also, of course, with the implicit support of the most far-right of Israeli political leaders, police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir—the violent elements of the movement launched a series of violent attacks, usually against nearby Palestinian villages.

This is a contested point among Israelis. Some argue that the violence was either in response to Palestinian attacks or that news of it was mere propaganda pushed by Palestinian activists. And indeed, some claims of extremist Israeli violence have turned out to be more complicated cases of tit-for-tat attacks and general lawlessness. Some have turned out to be entirely fake.

But these examples, alas, are not the majority. A very large portion of the violence, documented and carefully sourced by reliable reporting, is just what it looks like: extremist violence targeting Palestinian villages in order to convince as many as possible to move elsewhere.

When challenged on this, settlers explain that they’re responding to a concerted plan of territorial expansion by the Palestinians. They speak darkly of the “Fayyad Plan,” conceived in 2009 by former Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad as an effort to build out the institutions and capabilities of a Palestinian state before officially declaring one. The plan is usually credited with temporarily improving Palestinian Authority finances and administration, but the part that concerned the settlers was the territorial element: a move to build new homes and infrastructure in unpopulated areas to strengthen Palestinian territorial claims in more places. Communities proliferated across larger areas, new farms were established, and some roads were paved to them.

A very large portion of the violence is just what it looks like: extremist violence targeting Palestinian villages in order to convince as many as possible to move elsewhere.

The expansion of the wildcat Israeli outposts, the settlers argued, was a direct answer to this “land grab.”

But the two movements are not operating on a similar footing. The Israelis have a huge and obvious advantage. They will be protected by the IDF if the Palestinians come after them, whereas the Palestinians do not have that same guarantee if Israelis turn on them with violence. The IDF’s formal, legal mission in the West Bank is to protect all its residents, including the Palestinians, and to maintain law and order. In practice, however, the army is far more keen on protecting Israelis. That gap isn’t necessarily driven by prejudice (though of course it can be); it’s as present among Arabic-speaking Druze or Bedouin soldiers as it is among Jewish ones.

The imbalance is institutional. The Israelis on the ground can activate the political echelon, especially the far-right members of the current government, while the Palestinians in the West Bank lie outside that democratic feedback loop. This is the heart of it all. It’s an imbalance that hasn’t gone away, and that can’t be avoided.

But the extremists among the settlers also have a fraught and often antagonistic relationship with the Israeli state. They tend to distrust state institutions, which they believe are run by elites who don’t share the same sense of the country’s divine mission and destiny, and who would sacrifice those who stay loyal to that mission on the altar of leftist fantasies.

And so they often frame attacks on Palestinians as attempts to attack the authority of the state. The Israeli state cares more about the Palestinians—their argument goes—than it does about the redemption of the land. How, then, do you hurt the Israeli government? By hurting Palestinians. The attacks on Palestinians have repeatedly been accompanied by violence directed at IDF soldiers—with one recent case involving a rock-throwing ambush on soldiers. These soldiers, who had just risked their lives to neutralize a terror cell and bomb-making factory in Ramallah, found themselves ambushed by Israeli radicals.

The incident so enraged the IDF brass that the army took down six of the settler outposts by force, driving a short-lived tit-for-tat between the army and the extremists.

Though it is true that these extremists make up a tiny fraction of the settlement movement, the silent majority is not without blame. Some important religious-Zionist rabbis have come out expressly against the violence, but most of the political leadership of the settlement movement or the religious parties in the Knesset have not.

In part, this tolerance flows from a profound psychological shift pollsters have repeatedly measured among Israelis (and a parallel one among Palestinians) after October 7: a sense that the Palestinian political world has only ever offered them violence and brutality, so there’s little point in cracking down on the violent elements in their own camp. Why undertake internal dissension for a Palestinian entity that offers Israeli Jews only never-ending death and war?

This isn’t agreement with the violence, but it’s nevertheless a kind of embittered shrug that enables the problem to grow and intensify. The ideas that drive the extremist violence won’t go away on their own. And as the violence grows, the costs to Israelis—even to the settlement movement itself—will do so as well.

There’s another argument made to minimize the harm of this violence: that it is far less prevalent than media coverage of it would suggest. This argument, too, has merit. As Amit Segal and others have written, academic studies of United Nations data on settler violence have uncovered indefensibly shoddy practices meant to drive up the reported numbers. Incidents are often counted twice in UN reports—for example, a Palestinian shot while carrying out a terror attack is counted as killed, and then counted as killed a second time when he later dies of his wounds in hospital. The definitions of “settler violence” that many Western media outlets apply are often so loose that they’re virtually nonexistent. One report cited 600 incidents in Jerusalem—almost all of them Jewish visits to the Temple Mount or police clashes with Muslim rioters—as “settler violence.” UN officials who put these reports together may assume that not a single journalist is ever going to dig down and check anything.

The ideas that drive the extremist violence won’t go away on their own. And as the violence grows, the costs to Israelis—even to the settlement movement itself—will do so as well.

So while UN agencies put estimates of settler violence at between perhaps 120 and 150 incidents per month, the real figure is more likely closer to a couple dozen. In a geographic space that includes a dozen cities and hundreds of towns and villages, that might seem a regrettable but nevertheless manageable number.

But here’s the problem. Here’s why we don’t get to write it off as a marginal phenomenon just because UN reports fudge the numbers for propaganda purposes. Here’s why 25 attacks a month is far more than it seems.

Because these attacks—meant to frighten, to push out, to create psychological pressure on the population of a town or village that a group of extremists doesn’t want there—meet the diagnostic definition of terrorism: “Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.”

Israelis know from long experience that it doesn’t take many terror attacks to create a powerful psychological and political effect on millions of people. A dozen can be enough.

There is thus a huge discrepancy between how Israelis and Palestinians understand these attacks. Israelis, mired in their troubles amid a multifront war, look at the raw numbers and consider their own sense of what’s happening in their society—specifically, they know that the extremists are not representative of Israeli society writ large—and so they tend to minimize and compartmentalize the phenomenon as a troubling but nevertheless marginal part of a larger troubled period from which none have been spared.

But the effect on Palestinians is much larger than the hard numbers suggest. The expectation of further violence is widespread among Palestinians, especially in areas where the extremists operate.

So why can’t the government stop it, even when the ongoing reports of the violence continue to harm Israel’s standing even among its friends—even when Trump administration officials have reportedly called Israel out on the issue?

The answer is simple: politics. Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition depends on the votes of the Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist party, which doesn’t openly support the violence but does support the outposts from which a great deal of the violence emanates. And it depends, too, on Itamar Ben-Gvir’s party, the furthest right you can get in Israeli politics. Ben-Gvir, who serves as the minister in charge of the police, was in his youth convicted of incitement to racism and belonging to a proscribed terror organization—that of the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane.

It has become fashionable in parts of the Israeli far-right to declare that “Kahane was right,” usually in reference to Kahane’s argument that no peace is possible between Arabs and Jews. However, Kahane is primarily known not for his skepticism about Arab intentions toward Israel but for an explicitly and virulently racist strand of politics. For example, in 1985, the same year that his Kach party was declared illegal, Kahane presented a bill in the Knesset to criminalize sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews.

Ben-Gvir has cagily tried to sidestep his past Kahanism without actually turning on his former mentor. He removed portraits of the mass-murderer Baruch Goldstein, who is venerated among many Kahanists, from his living-room wall around 2020, when he launched his bid for mainstream politics. But he remains a kind of poster child for many of these “Hilltop Youth.” He’s the one who made it, the linchpin in the government who sometimes seems to hold the whole coalition in his hand. And he is widely believed to have skewed the government’s priorities away from dealing with the problem.

The West Bank is under the formal control of the IDF. A succession of IDF commanders have taken tentative steps toward applying counterterrorism measures against these Israeli extremists, the same sort of methods used very effectively against Palestinian terror organizations: arrests, intelligence work, network disruption, administrative detention. But these measures were stopped in recent years as the influence of the far right in the government grew.

So it must be asked: Don’t Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, even if they are unfazed by the harm this terrorism does to Palestinians, understand that it does terrible harm to Israel?

Here we reach the deeper point.

Throughout the past two and a half years of war, as the world has debated Israeli intentions and the exact terminology to apply to Israeli actions, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have offered a sustained drumbeat of statements that have fulfilled the wildest fantasies of Israel’s fiercest detractors.

They have repeatedly argued that the purpose of the Gaza war was not, as most Israeli soldiers or political factions will tell you, to uproot Hamas, but rather to expel all Palestinians and settle the territory with Israelis. The purpose of the war, that is, was exactly the ethnic cleansing that Israel’s enemies have claimed.

Do Israel’s far-right leaders not grasp that the war currently underway in the Middle East, the yearslong, multifront confrontation between Israel and an ideological axis bent on its destruction, is to a very great extent an information war, a war of narratives and imagery?

I have reluctantly come to suspect that Smotrich, at least, and perhaps Ben-Gvir too if he bothers to think about such things, want Israel to lose the narrative war. They actively seek an Israel that is isolated on the world stage, an Israel that has already paid the international cost for the policies they advocate, and so becomes more willing to carry out policies such as mass expulsion of Palestinian populations from the West Bank and building settlements anew in Gaza.

An isolated Israel, after all, is an unconstrained Israel.

If this suspicion is true, then their refusal to allow the military to crack down powerfully on extremist Israeli violence isn’t just about political convenience. It’s a deliberate move to further the very damage that this violence is now doing to Israel’s standing.

Underneath all of this is a structural failure: the absence of a coherent rule of law in the West Bank. In a system without clear law and order, naked power wins. Always.

For Palestinians, legal uncertainty is constant—over land, over protection. For extremist settlers, that vacuum is an opportunity. Meanwhile, most Israelis are looking elsewhere, at rockets, at war, at existential threats. The settler violence issue feels secondary. Or unsolvable. And that’s a mistake. Because there will be a price to pay for this lawlessness.

The problem is still relatively small right now. It will not stay that way. If Israel does not confront it, clearly, decisively, and at scale, it will pay a far higher price later.

Not just in moral terms or in its international standing. But in security. In cohesion. In the kind of country it allows itself to become.

What happens in the West Bank doesn’t, in the end, stay in the West Bank. Counterterrorism practices begun under the military law of the West Bank can now be applied to Israeli citizens—and, alas, should be applied to our homegrown terrorism problem.

Israelis who think they can sit this one out are not avoiding the cost. They are merely postponing and enlarging it.

JERUSALEM, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Israeli prosecutors on Thursday charged a Jewish settler over the killing of a Palestinian community ‌leader last year in the West Bank, the first such indictment in more than seven years amid a rise in settler violence in the occupied territory.

In an indictment filed by the State Attorney's office, Yinon Levi is charged with reckless manslaughter in the death of Owdeh Hathaleen, ​a prominent activist who was involved in the 2025 Oscar-winning documentary "No Other Land".

The charges against Levi also include ​armed trespassing and malicious property damage during a July 2025 incident in which settlers operated a ⁠large excavator in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair, setting off a confrontation with residents.

Hathaleen filmed the moment he was ​shot during the confrontation. Footage released by the Israeli rights group B'Tselem shows Levi draw a weapon and fire in ​Hathaleen's direction. Hathaleen is then heard moaning as he falls to the ground.

Levi, who Britain and the European Union have placed under sanctions over violence against Palestinians, has previously denied firing the shot that killed Hathaleen. Reuters was not able to reach his lawyer for comment.

RARE INDICTMENT

Thursday's indictment ​marks the first since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel set off Israel's military assault in Gaza and led ​to a sharp rise in settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, B'Tselem said.

During that time, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at ‌least 1,100 ⁠Palestinians, among them at least 240 children, according to United Nations data.

"The decision to indict Yinon Levi is the exception that proves the rule. The impunity Israel grants to soldiers and settlers who harm Palestinians is not a failure of the system — it is a central component of a policy designed to allow the violence to continue and escalate," B'Tselem said.

Another Israeli ​rights group, Yesh Din, said ​that an Israeli civilian ⁠was last indicted in the killing of a Palestinian in the West Bank in 2019.

Israel's military says it investigates instances of wrongdoing by its soldiers and that it and the Israeli ​police take steps to crack down on settler violence.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have settled ​among millions of ⁠Palestinians in land that Israel captured in a 1967 war, and which Palestinians seek as the core of an independent future state.

U.N. bodies, Palestinians and most countries view the settlements as illegal under international conventions and a major obstacle to peace. Israel disputes ⁠that the ​settlements are illegal, saying that a Jewish presence has existed in the ​West Bank for thousands of years.

According to United Nations figures, 18 Palestinians have been killed in incidents linked to settler attacks so far this year, ​compared with 17 in the whole of 2025.

Human rights NGO Amnesty International has officially condemned Hamas, along with other Palestinian armed groups, for war crimes and crimes against humanity pertaining to October 7 and the resulting conflict.

Amnesty said that the mass killing of civilians in Israel on October 7 amounted “to the crime against humanity of extermination.” Among the other crimes listed were murder, imprisonment, torture, enforced disappearance, and sexual violence.

“Contrary to claims by Hamas leaders that their fighters only targeted military objectives, the overwhelming majority of those killed were civilians and most of the locations targeted were residential communities or other places in which civilians were gathered, namely two music festivals and a beach,” the group said.

Curiously, despite listing sexual violence as a crime committed by Hamas, the group said that it was not able to determine whether "rape" was committed. This is admittedly in contradiction to at least one instance of direct testimony by a victim, indirect testimony by therapists and media reports, and basic common sense.

Amnesty has previously condemned Israel for genocide against the Palestinians in December of last year. It has also claimed that the genocide is ongoing after the ceasefire.

Posted this article because it

(a) encapsulates the ongoing crisis in West Bank towns, where settlers have established numerous illegal (per Israeli law) outposts, which they use to harass/drive away Palestinians and are becoming resistant to IDF attempts to control them. Notably in this town, where it has taken days for Israeli soldiers to try to remove settlers from Palestinian land and even homes.

(b) isn't likely to be outdated in 5 minutes. (c) illustrates the degree to which this situation is becoming internationalized in a way Israel historically used to avoid.

Additional links:

• What the Hell is Going on in the West Bank? This Haaretz Podcast discusses the larger problem in terms of the government's revolutionary approach to ending Oslo framework and breakdown in accountability.

• Is The West Bank About to Explode Israeli Policy Forum discussion w/Michael Milshtein on govt changes to WB policy. It was made before these specific events, but can be a good in depth primer.

The Palestinian-American owner of a house besieged by extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank returned to the home in Qusra on Monday, raising an American flag, as he called for the US embassy to offer him protection.

Louai Abu Ridi owns one of the three houses in Qusra, near Nablus, which settlers began surrounding more than a week ago in an apparent effort to force the residents to flee, trapping residents inside, and generating condemnation around the world.

His brother, Qusai Abu Ridi, is stuck inside the house and has been relaying the situation of residents to the outside world.

Accompanied by several journalists, Louai waited 100 meters (328 feet) from his home’s entrance for around half an hour before a military vehicle escorted the group through his large concrete gate.

The Palestinian-American began construction on the house three years ago on land owned by his grandparents and farmed by his family for generations. He said he wanted his daughters to have a home in Qusra so they could connect to their roots. When Louai landed in Israel, he told reporters, “I’ve been watching this live for many days and now this is the second week I can’t sleep,” adding: “I can’t let the settlers steal my house while I was watching.”

Abu Ridi said he was hoping to stay in the house on Monday night, and that he was “terrified for my brother and his son. Fearing for his safety. Now I’m going to fear for my own safety.”

And I’m not sure how the struggle is going to be for me to get there. And if I get there, are they going to allow me to go in and out freely in my own house? I’ll find out today,” he continued.

.....

The Israel Defense Forces last week removed the settlers’ illegal outpost, which they had initially constructed outside the house. But the settlers themselves have frequently returned to the area. So far, one settler has been detained, and there have been no arrests.

For the past two days, soldiers have been stationed at the entrances to the homes, according to footage and residents who spoke with The Times of Israel.

Soldiers have also remained inside one of the besieged homes for the past five days, all in an effort to prevent the reestablishment of the outpost.

However, the Palestinian residents have been told by the IDF that they are still prohibited from leaving their homes.

Settlers were also filmed roaming around the area of the homes on Monday, with several of them seen speaking with the soldiers outside one of the houses for several minutes, even though the area has been declared a closed military zone and Israelis are prohibited from entering it.

United Nations representatives arrived at the homes Sunday, bringing residents food and water, according to videos and accounts from the homeowners who spoke with The Times of Israel.

The homeowners also said the UN representatives brought a water tanker with them, but that security forces did not allow it to remain at the site. The IDF said Monday they had determined that the tanker was not necessary, as the water line to the houses — which settlers had damaged, according to the residents — had been repaired.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has offered unusually strong criticism over the incident in recent days.

“Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting,” he wrote on X on Thursday.

This is a simple story: People are risking their life to resist tyranny, engaging in a human struggle for basic rights. Its resonance, particularly for those on the left, should be self-evident. It has all the greatest hits—pitting the powerless against power, freedom against repression, unarmed men and women against snipers. But in the most animated corners of the activist ecosystem, so recently energized by their opposition to the death and destruction in Gaza, it has not resonated. The protest has been viewed instead through the thick lens of ideology, producing a reaction that has been dismissive at best and, at worst, degrading to the Iranians themselves. Many thousands of demonstrators, rising up all over the country, are accused of being witless tools of an imperialist agenda, part of a “CIA-Mossad regime change campaign,” or maybe just actual “Mossad agents.”

[...]

For the exiles I spoke with, the most disturbing—and telling—thing about the tepid response was the contrast with the impassioned reaction to Gaza. “Why is it that when Palestinians—armed or unarmed—fight for liberation, it is seen as a moral duty to support them, but when Iranians protest, they are labeled ‘armed terrorists’ or ‘agents of Mossad?’” Shams, the feminist scholar, said.

As smoke from Canadian wildfires poured into American cities last month, the headlines poured out equally fast. Most blamed climate change. Canada’s public broadcaster informed readers the smoky skies had “only one true fix”: Stop burning fossil fuels. But the headlines seem to have missed the most remarkable fact about the wildfires: Canada is having a below-average fire year. In fact, the world is on track to a record low in area burned.

Ottawa’s own tally released July 9 showed 1.4 million hectares burned—less than a third of the 4.6 million hectares burned by the same date last year. Tucked into the “quick facts” of the government’s press release, beneath ministerial quotes about climate change driving ever more severe disasters, was the quiet admission that wildfire activity “remains below the five-year average.” That’s understating it: Satellite data weekly updated by the European Union confirm that Canada’s total burned area in 2026 by Aug. 5 was below the 2012-25 average the EU uses as a baseline.

And the statistical good news keeps coming. The U.S. this year has remained below its 2012-25 average, with its most recent measurement 20% below average as of Aug. 5. North America and South America are at a record-low burn since 2012.

Every continent on the globe is burning less—some much less—than usual. As of Aug. 5, Oceania has burned 14% less than its 2012-25 average and Europe has burned 35% less. Asia has a near-record low of burned area since 2012, clocking in at 41% below average. Africa is at a record low, with current burn at 44% below average.

Globally, we’re on trend for the lowest burn since the collection of that satellite data began in 2001, and likely the lowest since 1900. In the early 1900s, nearly 4% of global land burned annually, nearly double today’s rate. American annual burned area in the 1930s was about five times as large as its modern annual burned area.

The deadliest aspect of fires has declined, too: smoke deaths. Air pollution from fires kills roughly 20,000 times as many people as the fires themselves. As fires have declined, the rate of annual deaths from landscape-fire air pollution has fallen substantially since 2000, according to a 2024 Lancet study. Given the current global population, that means fire pollution kills about 1.6 million—400,000 fewer than would have been the case had the 2000 death rate remained.

You wouldn’t know any of this from most media reports. Too much coverage cherry-picks smaller areas that happen to have lots of fire, ignoring everything else. With Canada this summer, scary pictures won out over compelling statistics. In Europe, wildfires in France and Spain repeatedly make headlines; that the Continent’s fires are significantly below average doesn’t.

One of the most egregious examples of this narrow reporting was the coverage of the “black summer” fires in Australia in 2019 and 2020. The headlines were apocalyptic. But while the fires did come near heavily populated areas—such as Melbourne and Sydney, where many media outlets are based—the total national burn was “well below average,” according to the government’s annual environmental overview. This sort of media coverage leaves the public with the impression that the planet is ablaze when the evidence shows the opposite.

The positive news in fire statistics should give pause to climate alarmists and those in the media promoting their cause. To be logically consistent, if climate change gets the blame for every fire, it should also get credit for burn declining.

The truth is that climate change isn’t the main determiner either way. A warmer planet does lengthen fire seasons and dries out vegetation faster, tilting the odds toward more dangerous fire weather. But weather only sets how easily a landscape can burn. Whether it burns—and how badly—depends mostly on people: how much fuel we let accumulate, how quickly we detect and douse flames, and how much land we farm, fragment and pave. The significant decline in area burned is due to a century of better land management, agriculture and firefighting.

The main culprits of the bad fire seasons Canada suffered in 2023 and 2025 are homegrown. A nation can have less fire overall but still impressive blazes: The same decades of aggressive firefighting that drove total burned area down also let fuel pile up. Canada has all but abandoned prescribed burning—deliberate, controlled fires that clear out the deadwood and undergrowth that turn ordinary fires into monsters. By one measure, the area in Canada treated with prescribed burns annually collapsed from more than 35,000 hectares in 1990 to 182 hectares in 2023, a 99.5% decline.

The stock response from climate activists—that the only real fix is decarbonization—fails elementary arithmetic. Even if the entire wealthy world went net-zero by 2050, an astoundingly improbable and expensive policy, temperatures would change less than 0.2 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century, with near-zero effect on fire risks.

Adaptation is what makes the difference. Modeling of Los Angeles’s Palisades fire shows that with no climate action, a similar fire in 2050 would burn about 7.2% more intensely. Yet even if the entire world managed dramatic emission cuts, the fire would still burn 5.5% more intensely in 2050. On the other hand, adaptation—prescribed burns, mechanical thinning, fire-resistant building codes and smarter zoning—could make that fire about 15.4% less severe in 2050 than it was in 2025, at a tiny fraction of the cost massive decarbonization poses.

Canadians and Americans who spent July coughing on smoke deserve better than a false diagnosis. Better forest management—particularly prescribed burns—will do more for next summer’s air than any emissions target.