Overnight Israeli settler attacks set farmlands ablaze in Masafer Yatta and burned vehicles near Tulkarem. After Ireland partially bans trade with Israeli settlements, the UK must go further Submitted by Hannah Bond on Wed, 07/15/2026 - 16:00 The Irish move is a good first step, but much more significant action is needed to safeguard Palestinian rights and international law Protesters in Brussels, Belgium, call for a ban on all goods from illegal Israeli settlements, on 17 June 2026 (Nicolas Tucat/AFP) On “We live each day fearing that we may be shot or killed, and in constant fear of being attacked and beaten.” These are the stark words of Najwa, a Palestinian farmer in Hebron in the occupied West Bank, whose land, family and community are under daily attack. Israeli settlers have stolen their livestock, trampled their crops, destroyed their greenhouses, broken into their home and attacked them with pepper spray.
The relentless campaign of violence, harassment and intimidation has driven most of Najwa’s neighbours off their land; only a few families remain in the valley. Today, settler violence in the occupied West Bank has soared to its highest level since UN monitoring began in 2006, with an average of six attacks recorded each day. Settlers have shot and stabbed children, committed sexual violence, and set fire to mosques - yet they benefit from near-total impunity.
Palestinian women and girls are at particular risk: not only do they face violence and harassment from settlers, but they are also often forced to stay at home for protection, cutting them off from education and reproductive healthcare. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); These horrific acts are not isolated events, and the people responsible for them are not rogue actors. They are at the vanguard of a settlement expansion project that is directed, funded and authorised by the Israeli state itself, and made possible by its discriminatory policies and practices.
It’s a project that has the ultimate aim of territorial expansion, achieved through an appalling strategy of illegal land annexation and ethnic cleansing. The UK government already accepts that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law. So why does it continue to permit trade that helps normalise and sustain them?
Alarming growth Israeli settlements already control more than 42 percent of West Bank territory, confiscated from Palestinian communities, along with the majority of the regi…
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