How the US Should Respond to Israeli Settler Attacks Against Palestinians
IMEU Policy Project Memo #26
BACKGROUND
As Israel has waged genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has sharply escalated, too. As many Palestinians attempted to harvest olives from their lands this October, Israeli settlers in the West Bank attacked them more than 260 times–double the average number of attacks for all previous months in 2025 and the highest monthly total recorded in recent history, according to the UN.
As of November, there have been 1,680 attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers during 2025. This is already the highest number of attacks recorded since the UN began reporting in 2006–and the year isn’t over yet. Palestinians have been killed in these attacks, including Sayfollah Musallet–a Palestinian-American US citizen who was beaten to death by Israeli settlers while defending his family’s land.
But even before Israel began its genocide, extremist Israeli ministers–including National Securiry Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who are settlers themselves and hold portfolios concerning the West Bank and Israeli settlements–promoted and facilitated the expansion of Israeli settlements and settler attacks in the West Bank.
Settler attacks are a direct result of Israel’s policy of violent occupation and the forced displacement of Palestinians from their ancestral lands. Members of Congress should comprehensively respond to these attacks by first codifying Biden-era sanctions on violent Israeli settlers and settler organizations and then by complying with US and international law to ensure that US weapons are not being used to empower Israeli settler violence and enable Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians in the West Bank..
TOPLINES
Settler violence is an outgrowth of Israel’s illegal occupation and construction of settlements on Palestinian land.
Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, for nearly 60 years and has built settlements there in violation of international law. Israel also illegally occupies Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights, and has settlements in the latter area. These settlements are intended to make Israel’s control over these areas permanent, and settler attacks serve to terrorize Palestinians into leaving their lands.
The Israeli military is the driving force behind Israeli violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, and its entrenchment of the occupation paves the way for settler violence. Israel’s invasion of West Bank cities and refugee camps earlier this year forcibly displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians in what Human Rights Watch said amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity. US-provided Caterpillar D9 bulldozers were used to destroy Palestinian homes and infrastructure–in violation of the Arms Export Control Act, which compels the US to end their transfer to Israel.
The US is obligated under international law to end its support for Israel’s illegal occupation and settlements.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion in June 2024 stating that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza is illegal under international law, that it obstructs Palestinian self-determination, and that it must end immediately. The ICJ’s opinion also stated that Israel has an obligation to immediately halt all new settlement construction, withdraw its troops, and dismantle its settlement enterprise in occupied territories immediately.
The advisory opinion also said that other states–including the US–have an obligation under international law to refrain from assisting Israel in maintaining its illegal occupation and settlement enterprise. US support–including the annual $3.8 billion in weapons to Israel that are funded by American taxpayers–is crucial to Israel’s ability to maintain its occupation and settlements. Members of Congress should push to end weapons to Israel in order to meet this legal obligation.
Settler violence is directly and indirectly supported by the Israeli government and military.
Smotrich’s move to place settlement and West Bank governance under his control has facilitated an explosion in the growth of illegal settlements. In 2024 alone, Israel approved the construction of nearly 10,000 housing units in settlements, making violent attacks more likely with the accompanying influx of settlers.
Smotrich has also retroactively approved several settler outposts, which are settlements constructed on Palestinian land without Israel’s initial approval. Their approval allows for them to receive funds and services from the Israeli state. These outposts serve to steal more Palestinian land, and many violent attacks happen near them. The Israeli military also reportedly coordinates with and orders the establishment of these outposts, according to an Israeli military officer.
Israeli courts rarely prosecute and punish Israeli settlers for attacks against Palestinians, and the Israeli military is much more likely to arrest Palestinian victims of Israeli settler attacks rather than the perpetrators of violence. Ben-Gvir reportedly instructed Israeli police not to enforce the law against Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians–and even bragged about this shift recently. Ben-Gvir has also flooded the West Bank with more privately-owned weapons, likely fueling the increase in settler attacks on Palestinians. These actions by the Israeli state have contributed to what former Israeli generals and officials have dubbed a culture of impunity.
Human Rights Watch reported on several incidents in which the Israeli military participated in or facilitated Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians or stood by as Palestinians were attacked. And incidents analyzed by Amnesty International further revealed Israel’s track record of enabling attacks.
US weapons fuel settler violence and the forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank. Weapons transfers to Israel should end immediately.
The Israeli military, which receives $3.8 billion in weapons funded by American taxpayers every year, provided 150,000 weapons to civilian settlers during the first 10 months of Israel’s genocide. Settlers often obtain these weapons by being members of settler militias that are sanctioned and armed by the Israeli military. Earlier this year the Trump administration sent to Israel a shipment of 20,000 rifles that President Biden had paused over his concerns that they would be given to Israeli settlers.
Thousands of Israeli settlers have also been drafted into the Israeli military since the beginning of Israel’s genocide, giving them access to these weapons. Palestinians have reported settlers inflicting violence against them while in uniform likely with US-supplied weapons. The use of these weapons in settler attacks is a violation of the Arms Export Control Act, which limits the use of US weapons to internal security or legitimate self-defense.
The Israeli government and Israeli officials must also be held accountable for their roles in settler violence.
President Biden’s sanctions on individual Israeli settlers and settlement-supporting entities, which were rescinded by President Trump’s on the first day of his second term, were a step in the right direction and should be restored. However, it’s important to note that while these sanctions were in place, Smotrich reportedly worked to undermine them and to support the settlers who were sanctioned.
This ministerial support for Israeli settler violence means that Members of Congress should go further and also place sanctions on the Israeli government and on Israeli officials–including Ben-Gvir and Smotrich–for their complicity in settler attacks on Palestinians and for pursuing a policy of forced displacement of Palestinians from their land.
DETAILS
On February 1, 2024, President Biden issued Executive Order 14115, which created the basis for placing sanctions on individuals and entities that were deemed responsible for stoking and committing violence in the West Bank. The executive order was issued under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the National Emergencies Act, and Section 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Some of the sanctioned individuals and entities included:
Zvi Bar Yosef is an Israeli settler who received an M16 rifle, likely supplied by the US, from the Israeli military because of his involvement with a settler militia. He operates an outpost that was described as a “source of systematic intimidation and violence” by a 2020 UN report. Bar Yosef himself has also reportedly engaged in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Yinon Levi is an Israeli settler who was accused of killing Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist who contributed to the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. Levi’s alleged killing of Hathaleen after Trump rescinded these sanctions dramatically illustrates how the current administration has enabled Israeli settler violence. Israeli courts refused to charge Levi in the killing. Smotrich possibly intervened to unfreeze Levi’s bank account, thereby undermining the sanctions before Trump rescinded them, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Meitarim Farm is an Israeli settler outpost founded and operated by Yinon Levi and was sanctioned because of settler attacks that originate from there and its links to Levi. Settlers from the outpost launch attacks on Umm Al-Kheir, which is the town where Awdah Hathaleen was killed. In April 2025, Smotrich participated in a handover ceremony of ATVs that were provided to the settlement with state funding. Levi was also present at the ceremony.
Hashomer Yosh is an Israeli NGO that supports Israeli settlement outposts in the West Bank, primarily by sending young Israelis to work in them. Likely volunteers sent by the NGO have been documented carrying out violence against Palestinians in several instances.
The organization itself has claimed that its actions are coordinated with the Israeli government, and it has received funding from the Israeli Ministries of Agriculture and Environment. Ministers in charge of those bodies have participated in events with the organization and affirmed their support. Following the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the Israeli military coordinated with Hashomer Yosh to send its volunteers to areas of the West Bank. Palestinians reported an escalation in violence following this coordination.
While the Biden administration’s sanctions were a step in the right direction, these examples demonstrate that these individuals and entities not only did not operate independently of the Israeli government and military, but are actively supported by the Israeli government. These sanctions also did not slow the pace of settler attacks against Palestinians; neither did they slow the Israeli government’s continued expansion of settlements.
All of these sanctions were terminated by President Donald Trump on his first day of his second term. Since then, the West Bank Violence Prevention Act (H.R.3045/S.2667) was introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the SANCTIONS in the West Bank Act (S.2672) was introduced in the Senate. Both bills seek to codify the Biden administration’s executive order that allowed for the sanctioning of settlers.
These bills are welcome developments, but like the Biden administration’s executive order, they lack a comprehensive response to Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians that fully addresses support from Israeli officials, the Israeli military, and the Israeli government. To more robustly address settler attacks against Palestinians, Congress must end US support for the driving force behind the attacks: the Israeli government’s settlement enterprise.
Cover Photo: Basel al-’Adrah (BT'selem volunteer), CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons link