Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN deputy special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, told the Security Council that 76 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank since the beginning of 2026, including 18 minors.
He said some 3,800 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, had been displaced this year as a result of settler violence, home demolitions and evictions.
“Settler violence has reached unprecedented levels,” Alakbarov said, noting that the UN had documented more than 1,430 incidents so far this year, affecting around 260 Palestinian communities.
“The pattern is clear,” he said. “Palestinians are being forcibly displaced across the West Bank before settlers seize the vacated land.”
Alakbarov also warned that attacks by Israeli settlers, previously concentrated largely in Area C, were increasingly being reported in Areas B and A, where the Palestinian Authority exercises varying degrees of administrative control under the Oslo Accords.
The Security Council meeting was requested by five European members of the council and supported by Bahrain, China, Pakistan and Russia amid mounting international concern over the deteriorating situation in the occupied West Bank.
Britain’s new UN Ambassador Sarah MacIntosh condemned the escalating violence, describing attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages, in some cases alongside Israeli soldiers, as “appalling.”
Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour said Israel’s annexation of Palestinian territory was already “underway — brutally and relentlessly,” urging the international community to take action toward Palestinian self-determination and freedom.
Meanwhile, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Deputy Executive Director Hannan Sulieman told the story of a grandmother in the West Bank who was afraid to leave her home after a grenade was thrown into her kitchen while her grandchildren were inside.
"The fundamental spaces of childhood – the home, the classroom, the street, the community – are becoming increasingly unsafe," she warned.
Between January 2024 and July 2026, 174 Palestinian children were verified killed by the UN in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem - “more than one child every week”, she said, offering context.
More than 1,500 children were injured – nearly half of them by live ammunition. Over the same period, 3 Israeli children were killed and 15 injured.
As well, she voiced that 355 Palestinian children from the West Bank are being held in Israeli military detention – “the highest number in eight years”.
She pressed the UNSC to protect children, end the forced displacement of Palestinian families, protect access to education and healthcare and safeguard humanitarian operations.
“Children in the West Bank have the same rights as children everywhere,” she said, adding: “ To live, to learn, to be protected and to imagine a future beyond violence and fear.”
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