A Palestinian child looks on as he stands on the edge of a damaged street following an Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank city of Tubas. AFP
Between 7 and 13 October 2023, two Palestinian men were killed, one by Israeli forces and one either by Israeli forces or settlers, in the occupied West Bank, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
During the same period, 156 Palestinians, including 12 children and three women, were injured in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem: 111 by Israeli forces, 43 by Israeli settlers, and two by either Israeli forces or settlers, OCHA said.
The surge in assaults coincided with the annual olive harvest season and affected at least 27 villages and Bedouin communities, leaving one Palestinian dead and nearly 100 others injured.
The figures highlight an overlap between settler violence and military operations: 43 injuries were caused directly by settlers, while 54 occurred during Israeli army interventions following or during settler attacks.
The period between 7 and 13 October 2023 saw a rapid escalation of organized settler violence.
The scale of material losses documented by OCHA paints a stark picture of ethnic cleansing by attrition. Around 1,430 Palestinian-owned trees and saplings, mostly centuries-old olive trees, were vandalised or destroyed, and 40 vehicles were damaged in the attacks.
Half of the recorded attacks were explicitly linked to the olive harvest, a vital economic and cultural pillar for the Palestinian people. Settlers engaged in targeted theft of crops and equipment, assaulting farmers and preventing them from accessing their land.
This systemic targeting of the harvest, a recurring seasonal trauma, was amplified to a new extreme.
A specific assault in the Wadi Saif area of Beit Fajjar saw armed settlers, accompanied by Israeli forces, attack a family harvesting grapes, injuring four, including a paramedic from the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
So far in 2025, more than 3,200 Palestinians have been injured in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This is an increase of about 28 percent compared with the same period in 2024, when over 2,500 injuries were recorded by OCHA.
The short-term spike from October 2023 was not an isolated event but part of a larger, ongoing campaign, as cumulative figures up to October 2025 reveal the staggering toll of this violence.
According to Palestinian resistance committees, 7,154 settler attacks have been recorded since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
This ongoing violence has led to the forcible displacement of over 46 Bedouin communities entirely or partially, as residents have been driven from their homes and denied access to basic services and grazing lands.
The environmental and economic devastation is equally severe. According to the UN, 48,728 trees, including 37,237 olive trees, have been uprooted, destroyed, or damaged since 7 October 2023.
OCHA described the destruction as a severe and sustained blow to Palestinian agriculture and heritage, often carried out under the protection or with the presence of Israeli forces accompanying settler groups during attacks.
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