Palestine: Settler violence in the West Bank
While the world looks elsewhere, Palestinian land is being seized and homes are demolished.
“The military often comes at night,” says Sari Ahmad, who is from Al Fakhiet in the Masafer Yatta area of the West Bank, Palestine. “Soldiers swarming the neighbourhood, breaking into our homes, destroying our property and arresting people en masse. Our houses are being seized and demolished.”
Sari, who suffers from diabetes, received treatment from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams until January, however, as violence and movement restrictions have increased, our teams can no longer access dozens of people in need in the area.
“If the world continues to look away, the shrinking of Palestinian land will not stop. It will simply continue — checkpoint by checkpoint, road by road, house by house — until a reality that once seemed temporary becomes permanent.”
Salam Yousef, MSF staff member in Jerusalem
While the world turns its attention to the conflict in Iran, Israeli forces have been intensifying their military operations across the West Bank. Most checkpoints remain closed, which means for most people, normal daily activities are now even more time consuming or at times impossible, and carry the risk of injury or death from unprovoked Israeli attacks.
Violence by Israeli settlers has also increased in several areas across the West Bank. Residents report settlers entering Palestinian villages and farmland while openly carrying weapons, attacking Palestinians in their cars.
“The settler attacks have grown more brutal and deadly,” says Sari. “Most of them are armed nowadays and they shoot to kill.”
Israeli forces increase West Bank military operations amid regional conflict
In recent weeks, the dramatic escalation in the conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran has added another layer of violence and fear across Palestine.
“When the sirens start, we gather in the hallway of our home, away from the windows,” says Yasmin Mohammad, MSF community health worker in Hebron. “In the distance, explosions echo across the hills as interceptors strike projectiles.”
Unlike in Israeli towns and cities, where shelters and warning systems are widespread, most Palestinians in the West Bank have no access to shelters or protected spaces. When debris falls, families have little choice but to stay inside and hope.
“We feel the space in which we can live, move and build our lives around is shrinking— while the world looks elsewhere,” says Mohammad.
Violence and fear shape life in the West Bank
Between Oct. 7, 2023, and March 7, 2026, 1,071 Palestinians, including 233 children, have been killed in the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to the UN. Eleven have been killed by settlers this year alone.
“It is shocking and deeply disturbing,” says Salam Yousef, an MSF staff member in the West Bank.
“They attack and kill people without consequences – it feels like there is no justice for us, like our lives don’t count,” says Yousef. “Last week, they [Israeli forces] shot a family of six who were driving home. Only two of the sons survived. They are orphans now – their family was killed in front of them; their brothers were seven and five years old.”
The widespread and multilayered violence has reshaped life for Palestinians. The sense of an existential threat captures a broader reality unfolding across the West Bank.
“These developments feel like more than a series of isolated incidents,” says Yousef. “It is a slow but significant transformation, step by step Israeli forces and settlers are taking over. It is frightening because we have no control and the world doesn’t seem to care about what happens to us.”
“If the world continues to look away, the shrinking of Palestinian land will not stop,” says Yousef. “It will simply continue — checkpoint by checkpoint, road by road, house by house — until a reality that once seemed temporary becomes permanent.”
“We feel abandoned and forgotten”
“The psychological toll of this environment is immense,” says Elsa Salvatore, MSF psychotherapist in Nablus. “It’s not only about physical violence from settler attacks or what happens at checkpoints. In our sessions, people often speak about the humiliation they experience daily and the constant uncertainty. They become hyper-vigilant, unable to sleep, always expecting something bad to happen.”
“Most people have stopped making plans,” Salvatore says. “Many suffer from symptoms related to post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD) – although PTSD is not correctly describing it, because they are not ‘post’ traumatic experiences. They are still in it, continuously experiencing trauma and uncertainty.”
“I’m scared and feel hopeless at the thought that MSF’s services could cease to exist.”
A mental health patient cared for by MSF in Nablus
As violence, insecurity and restrictions on daily life become increasingly widespread across the West Bank, it is essential that people have access to healthcare. But in reality, access to medical care is blocked or severely obstructed.
In certain regions, like Masafer Yatta, located south of Hebron, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are blocked from providing essential humanitarian support, as large parts of the area are designated as a military zone and Israeli forces heavily restrict movement. Consequently, MSF has had to reduce the number of our mobile clinics in the area from 17 to just 5 since September 2025. Patients are being cut off from even the most basic medical services.
“We feel abandoned and forgotten,” says a resident from Masafer Yatta. “There is no one coming to us anymore. When we get sick, we have no choice but to walk for miles. Sometimes we just stay and endure the pain.”
Greater needs require more access, not less
Israel’s restrictive new rules threaten to drastically reduce this already insufficient assistance. As MSF is one of 37 NGOs whose registration was not renewed by the Israeli authorities, our international staff had to leave Palestine by March 1, 2026. While our Palestinian colleagues continue to provide healthcare, the future of our projects in the West Bank and Gaza is uncertain. In Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarem, our activities have also been significantly reduced due to both security concerns and new administrative obstacles imposed since March 1.
“I’m scared and feel hopeless at the thought that MSF’s services could cease to exist,” says one of our mental health patients in Nablus.
Our teams do their best to provide remote psychosocial sessions online, but this does not provide the same support as in-person care. It especially doesn’t work for survivors of sexual violence, families of low socioeconomic level with telecommunication barriers and patients with chronic psychiatric conditions, such as psychosis.
Access to healthcare is a fundamental human need and a cornerstone of community resilience. When healthcare systems become fragmented, preventive care declines, chronic illnesses worsen and communities face greater risk. Amid the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine, MSF will continue to provide healthcare for as long as possible, doing as much as we can.
What is unfolding in the West Bank today is not inevitable, nor is it invisible. International humanitarian law is clear: As the occupying power, Israel has a legal responsibility to ensure the protection of civilians and to facilitate access to essential medical care. The reality is anything but. Living conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank are dangerous and blatantly inhumane. “We just want to live safely, raise our children without fear and to be treated with dignity,” says Yousef.
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