It began after dark on Saturday and lasted until the early hours of Sunday. Israeli settlers, mobilised through WhatsApp groups in their hundreds, fanned out across the northern West Bank and attacked 14 Palestinian villages in what human rights organisations are calling the most coordinated settler assault in years.
In Fandaqumiya, south of Jenin, settlers smashed car windows and set fires. In Seilat al-Dahr, they beat residents and torched agricultural land. In Jalud and Salfit, south of Nablus, homes were stoned and livestock killed. In Masafer Yatta and the Jordan Valley, agricultural infrastructure was destroyed. The attacks were not random. They were systematic, simultaneous and clearly pre-planned.
The Pattern
Palestinian-Israeli politician Aida Touma-Suleiman described what happened as a six-hour “pogrom” across 14 villages. The word is not hyperbole. It describes exactly what occurred: organised mob violence against a civilian population, carried out with impunity and without meaningful intervention by the state security forces that are legally responsible for protecting those civilians.
Yesh Din, the Israeli human rights organisation that monitors settler violence, reported that there had been an average of 10 settler attacks per day on Palestinians since the beginning of March — a sharp escalation that coincides precisely with the start of the Iran war. The connection is not coincidental. The war has drawn military resources and international attention away from the West Bank, creating a permissive environment for settler extremists who view the conflict as an opportunity.
The Government’s Role
Yair Golan, leader of Israel’s centre-left Democrats party, was blunt in his assessment. The government, he said, is “encouraging total anarchy” and “Jewish terrorism is spreading with backing from extremist ministers.” He was referring to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, both settlers themselves, who have used their positions to expand settlements, weaken enforcement against settler violence and redirect security resources away from Palestinian protection.
Opposition lawmakers went further. Several compared the Saturday night attacks to Kristallnacht — the coordinated pogrom against Jews in Nazi Germany in 1938. The comparison is incendiary in Israeli politics, but those who made it argued that the parallels are structural: organised mob violence against a minority population, carried out openly, with the tacit or explicit support of governing authorities.
The UN Report
The timing of Saturday’s attacks coincides with a damning UN Human Rights Office report documenting 1,732 incidents of settler violence resulting in casualties or property damage in the 12 months to October 2025 — a figure that has clearly accelerated since. The report found that Israel’s settlement expansion is driving mass displacement in the West Bank, with nearly 700 Palestinians in nine communities displaced by settler attacks in 2026 alone.
None of this is new. Settler violence has been escalating for years, enabled by a political system that rewards it and a military occupation that sustains it. What is new is the scale, the coordination and the impunity. Saturday night’s pogrom was not an aberration. It was the logical consequence of a government policy that treats settlers as pioneers and Palestinians as obstacles. The war with Iran has simply removed the last constraints.