Settlers have killed 25 Palestinians in 2026, a record year

The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said 25 Palestinians have been killed in settler attacks since the start of 2026, the highest toll in any year its records cover, out of 87 counted since the beginning of 2019.

The figures, released on Friday, put this year about 79 percent above the whole of 2025, which ended with 14 deaths, and the year still has more than four months to run. The rise before it was uneven but steep: two deaths in 2019, one in 2020, five in 2021 and six in 2022, then 23 in 2023 and 11 in 2024.

Of the 87, 61 were killed after 7 October 2023 — more than 70 percent of the total, in a stretch making up little more than a third of the years counted.

The monthly breakdown points to waves rather than a steady rate. Ten people were killed in October 2023, nine in March this year and seven in July. The commission read that clustering as a shift toward larger attacks, able to cause several casualties in one village or in a single incident.

Two governorates account for most of the deaths. Ramallah and al-Bireh recorded 36, about 41 percent of the total, and Nablus 26, close to 30 percent — 62 between them, or roughly 71 percent. Hebron recorded nine, Jerusalem and Salfit five each, Bethlehem three and Qalqilya two, with one death inside the 1948 territories.

The commission tied that concentration to the areas where settlement outposts have spread fastest, and to repeated attacks on villages, roads and farmland around them. It said the attacks work as part of the settlement project rather than alongside it, frightening residents off their land and clearing the way for it to be taken.

Those killed were young. Twelve were children under 18, nearly 14 percent of the total, and another 41 were aged between 18 and 29, so that 53 of the 87 — about 61 percent — had not turned 30. The youngest was 14 and the oldest 72, and the median age was 26.

The commission dated the change to the formation of Israel's far-right government on 29 December 2022, after which, it said, figures from the fringes of the settlement movement moved into the centre of decision-making. It described conditions made steadily more permissive for settlers since: outposts expanded and then legalised after the fact, protection and resources supplied, weapons easier to obtain, and investigations and prosecutions that have deterred nobody.

It asked other states to move from condemnation to accountability — sanctions on those who carry out the attacks and on the official bodies behind them, an end to financial and commercial backing for settlements, protection for the communities most exposed, and prosecution before international courts.