Khaberni - The National Office for the Defense of Land and Resistance to Settlement stated in its periodic report today, Saturday, "The violence and terrorism of the settlers is escalating after Ben Gvir instructed the occupation police to protect them and not to pursue them."
The report confirmed that the West Bank is witnessing a significant escalation in violent acts carried out by settler gangs, which take settlements, outposts, and pastoral farms as safe havens and launching centers for their attacks against the Palestinian citizens and their properties, with full protection from the occupation army and clear complicity from the Israeli police, ignoring hundreds of complaints submitted by these citizens, and closing crime files without conducting serious investigations.
In this regard, recent official data revealed by the Israeli police in response to a request from the "For Freedom of Information" movement showed a clear decline in the police's handling of settler crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank. The data indicated that Palestinians submitted 427 complaints in the first half of 2025 related to settler assaults, including physical attacks, property arson, and agricultural land vandalism, compared to about 680 complaints recorded during the entire year of 2024. Despite this increase in complaints, the Israeli police only opened 156 criminal investigations, representing 37% of the total complaints submitted, whereas they had opened 308 investigations in 2024, with a rate amounting to 45% of the total cases filed by Palestinians following the terrorist attacks by settlers.
The report continued, "It is noted here that the central unit of the occupation police in the West Bank (Shai), responsible for investigating crimes of a nationalist nature and Jewish terrorism, has been working without a permanent chief for a year, after its previous head, Avishai Malam, was dismissed due to suspicions of deliberately ignoring information related to right-wing extremist activities to please Ben Gvir. It is suspected, according to Israeli press reports, that Malam deliberately ignored intelligence information related to activities of extremist settlers, refrained from making arrests against them in an effort to please Minister Ben Gvir, hoping for a job promotion."
The report added, "Malam also faces suspicions of committing offenses related to receiving bribes, fraud, breach of trust, and misuse of authority. During his tenure, Malam consistently denied the escalation of settler terrorism crimes, falsely claiming they were decreasing, while the Jewish department in the Shin Bet security service confirmed that these crimes were continuously escalating. The Israeli police in the West Bank (Shai) are currently led by Moshe Benchi, a figure close to Ben Gvir who previously served as his security secretary, raising more suspicions about the police work and its direction to serve a political agenda that overlooks the terrorism of the settlers."
The report continued, "If we go back a bit to shed light on the role of the occupation police and so-called law enforcement agencies in handling violations and assaults against Palestinian citizens, the picture becomes more complete. The neglect of these police and agencies is not a recent occurrence and did not start with Ben Gvir and the extreme fascist right-wing government in the state of occupation, but rather it is a policy that has been ongoing for years. True, the situation with this government and Ben Gvir's policy exacerbated the situation, but the matter is more complex than that, as most of the national crime files against Palestinians in the West Bank in the last twenty years have been closed without indictments. This is evident from the data collected by the “Yesh Din – There is a Judgment” organization in the years 2005 – 2024. This organization followed 1701 investigation files in extreme nationalist violations against Palestinians in what is called "Judea and Samaria Brigade" in the occupation police. About 94 percent of the files followed were closed without indictments, and only 3 percent of the files that were issued indictments led to full or partial convictions. At the same time, the investigations, which were carried out by the organization, showed that in the last decade there has been a decrease in the proportion of Palestinian victims willing to file complaints at the police against nationalist extremism violence, and this continued in the last two years, after Itamar Ben Gvir took over the position of Minister of National Security in the occupation government. In 2024, 66 percent of the victims who participated in the study indicated that they were not interested in filing a complaint at the police (101 cases out of 153), compared to 27 percent of the victims who answered “yes” in 2021."
The report concluded, "This development is indicative of the attitude of Palestinian citizens based on their experience with police investigation files raised to them from complaints or assaults, about which the police learned the details. Among the prominent files in recent years, which did not reach the level of charging, are the terrifying violence files in Hawara in February 2023, in which Sameh Al-Aqtash was killed in the nearby village of Za'atara. One of the victims from the residents of Hawara, whose shop was burned during the riots, filed a complaint with the help of the Israeli “There is Law - Yesh Din” on the day of the events, and in September 2023, he was informed that the file was closed. Similar behavior of the police occurred in July 2024 when Palestinians were attacked by settlers near the outpost of Efrat at Khirbet Al-Nahla. “We were on our land, the settlers attacked us,” said one of the citizens, “They broke the fence, shot me in the leg, hit me with a stick on my head, and sprayed me with pepper spray. Many of my family were injured. My uncle needed to place platinum, and my cousin broke his leg" The assault was documented, and nothing happened. And so was the situation in horrific assault cases in the villages of Duma and Al-Mughayyir, no indictments were presented. This is also the case in the terrible terrorist acts in the village of Jett, in which houses were burned, shots fired and a young Palestinian was killed. In some cases, some people were administratively detained, but this stopped by decisions from the Minister of the Occupation Army Yisrael Katz, and in all these cases, no indictment was presented."
