The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) is a Palestinian government body affiliated with the Palestinian Authority that monitors, documents, and opposes Israeli settlements and the Apartheid Wall that Israel constructed 25 years ago to strangle Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.
According to an analytical assessment published by the commission and reported by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, settlers were responsible for 799 of the documented fires, or 88.8 percent, while 101 fires, or 11.2 percent, were attributed to the Israeli military.
The commission described settler arson as one of the most prominent tools of Israeli terrorism against Palestinians, saying the repeated attacks reflected an organized and systematic pattern targeting Palestinian security, property and livelihoods.
File Photo: Israeli settlers and armed soldiers in the town of Huwara in the occupied West Bank. AFP
The number of fires increased steadily during the period covered by the assessment, rising from 217 in 2023 to 264 in 2024 and 307 in 2025. A further 112 fires were recorded between the beginning of 2026 and 10 July.
The Nablus and Ramallah and Al-Bireh governorates accounted for 552 of the 900 incidents, or 61.3 percent of the total.
The figures were released as Qusra, south of Nablus, came under renewed settler attack following weeks of siege of three Palestinian homes on the outskirts of the village under the protection of occcupation soldiers.
Dozens of Israeli settlers attacked the village on Saturday, according to residents.
Qusra resident Yussef Abdul Kareem Hassan told AFP that several Palestinians were working on a house when a small group of settlers approached them before calling for reinforcements.
The settlers returned with dozens more, surrounded the Palestinians inside the house and began throwing stones, Hassan said.
Israeli soldiers secure a building under construction as ambulances evacuate injured Palestinians following an attack by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra. AP
The latest confrontation follows an earlier settler blockade of Palestinian homes in Qusra under the protection of Israeli soldiers, which began in early August.
Israeli Settlers have besieged three Palestinian homes, restricting the movement of residents and, according to residents and rights groups, cutting water and electricity connections while food and water supplies dwindled.
Israeli occupation forces also evacuated more than a dozen Palestinian homes in the area to establish military positions, according to previous reports. Residents were reportedly given 30 minutes to leave and move into homes that were already under siege.
File Photo: A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli bulldozers demolish an apartment building belonging to the Salhab family near the Israeli settlement of Hagai, south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. AFP
The Israeli siege in Qusra has attracted regional and international condemnation. France has called on Israel to arrest and prosecute settlers involved in the blockade and has stressed Israel's obligations as an occupying power to protect Palestinian civilians. Various Europeans powers have also urged Tel Aviv to drop its kids glove treatment of settlers committing crimes against the Palestinians.
Settler violence and occupation hell
Israel captured the West Bank in its 1967 war against Arab countries and carried out violent and systematic policies to foil the Palestinian dream of an independent state on the 4 June 1967 borders with East Jerusalem a its capital.
Since the outbreak of the genocidal Israeli war on Gaza in October 2023, the Israeli violence against three million Palestinians in the occupied West bank has intensified.
The Palestinian Health Ministry data puts the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation army or settlers in the West Bank since then at at least 1,103, including tens of children.
On Saturday, an Israeli drone struck a house under construction outside Jenin, killing three Palestinians in the first Israeli airstrike on the occupied West Bank in roughly 10 months.
Over the past five decades, Tel Aviv has constructed hundreds of settlements in the occupied territories. Today, more than 500,000 armed and dangerous Israeli settlers terrorize three million Palestinians with arson attacks on homes, burning of crops, and destruction of property daily.
Israeli and international rights organizations have repeatedly condemned Israeli occupation forces for refusing to protect Palestinians from settler attacks and, in some cases, for intervening to aid settlers in their attacks on residents, to no avail.
File Photo- Israeli soldiers stand by as Israeli settlers throw stones at Palestinians during clashes in the town of Huwara in the West Bank. AFP
According to Israeli rights group Yesh Din, around 94 percent of investigations into settler violence since 2005 ended without an indictment, while only around 3 percent resulted in full or partial convictions.
For its part, the Israeli army's expansive system of checkpoints in every corner of the occupied territories turns Palestinians' daily routine, whether going to work, scchools or hospitals, into hell every day, while settlers travel freely on all Jewish roads.
The Israeli occupation army has continued to demolish Palestinian homes and roads and has ethnically cleansed nearly 40,000 Palestinians from the northern West Bank since the start of 2025.
While successive Israeli governments have spent billions of dollars to expand settlements in the occupied territories, the current government has accelerated settlement construction to annexe more land in the West Bank, including the E1 (East One), the project—covering 12 square kilometres— in occupied East Jerusalem.
This plan would reshape the geography of the occupied West Bank and threaten the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state.
In February, a report released by the UN Human Rights Office said Israel’s increased attacks and forcible transfers of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank raise concerns of “ethnic cleansing,” warning that some actions could amount to “genocide” if intent to destroy a group is established.
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