Netanyahu blasted for playing down settler violence against Palestinians in West Bank

Avi Dabush, chairman of the organization Rabbis for Human Rights, slammed Israeli PM Netanyahu's remarks -- that have been playing down the growing settler violence against Palestinians -- via a X post by describing them as "a brazen lie and a clear and immediate danger to us all."

Dabush questioned why the army and police were unable to stop this "child militia."

"What we see isn't a handful of kids, but armed adults, many of whom are residents of outposts, who act in a systematic and organized manner," Dabush told Kan news. "It's Jewish terrorism. To call it anything else is to confer legitimacy to the ongoing violence."

In this context, he called the far-right minister for national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a criminal who had been convicted of supporting terrorism and yet was entrusted by Netanyahu with overseeing the police.

Ben-Gvir is identified with the goals of the settler movement and advocates annexation of the West Bank.

Netanyahu plays down the growing settler violence against Palestinians

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has played down the growing settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, blaming it on a small number of miscreant minors.

In an interview with the US broadcaster Fox News, Netanyahu said only a "handful of kids" were responsible for such incidents in the occupied territory.

"They're actually teenagers who come from broken homes, and they do things like chopping the olive trees, and sometimes they try to burn a home," he said in the comments broacast on Tuesday. "I can't accept that. That's vigilantism."

The perpetrators do not even come from the West Bank itself, he added.

However, Netanyahu spoke of a "false symmetry" comparing such attacks with terrorist attacks on Israeli settlers and their families in the West Bank, which he estimated to number more than 1,000.

OCHA: More than 1,700 settler attacks in the West Bank since the beginning of the year

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there have been more than 1,700 settler attacks in the West Bank since the beginning of the year.

In 2025, violence in the West Bank claimed a total of around 240 Palestinian lives, at least nine of whom were killed by settlers, the agency said.

In the West Bank, there are repeated deadly terrorist attacks by Palestinians on Israelis.

According to OCHA, 17 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, including six security forces and 11 civilians, seven of whom were settlers.