Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian homes, businesses and farmland in the occupied West Bank are increasingly being described as pogroms because experts say they involve organised violence against a civilian group, often with support or approval from Israeli forces and authorities.
The term has no established legal definition under international law. But dictionary definitions generally describe a pogrom as organised violence, killing or cruel behaviour directed at people because of their race or religion, with some definitions specifically including official or state-backed action.
What is happening in the West Bank?
Settler attacks have occurred for decades as Israeli settlements expanded across the West Bank, but the source material says they have become more frequent and violent over the past month. Settlers from the Havat Gilad settlement recently attacked Palestinian homes on the eastern edge of Tal, southwest of Nablus. Israeli military raids, arrests and home searches have also continued across towns, villages and refugee camps.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded more than 1,330 settler-related attacks on Palestinians from January to late July, an average of six a day and the fastest pace since systematic tracking began two decades ago. Attacks described in the source include killing or stealing livestock, cutting off water and electricity, damaging property and restricting supplies.
Related coverage: Human Rights Watch says settler violence is forcing Palestinians from West Bank communities.
- In Qusra, three families consisting of 15 people, including two children, have faced an ongoing 15-day siege, according to the source material.
- Settlers have established tents beside some Palestinian homes, while residents say essential supplies were cut off and property or livestock was damaged.
- Israeli soldiers have sometimes arrived during such incidents and removed Palestinian families, either through arrests or under claims of providing protection, rather than removing the settlers.
Why experts use the word “pogrom”
The British Collins Dictionary defines a pogrom as organised, official violence against a group for racial or religious reasons. Oxford, Merriam-Webster and Cambridge use definitions centred on organised killing, massacre or cruel behaviour against large groups because of race or religion. The word was first used for organised mob attacks on Jewish communities in the Russian Empire after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has called the attacks “pogroms against defenceless civilians”. Raheel Dhattiwala, a scholar of collective violence, said the attacks fit the characteristics of a pogrom because one civilian group is being systematically targeted by another with state approval.
- The term is descriptive rather than a formal international-law category.
- Israeli officials have also used the term. Yehuda Fuchs, the Israeli military’s former commander in the West Bank, called the February 2023 attack on Huwara and nearby Palestinian communities a pogrom.
- B’Tselem and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention have separately described attacks on Palestinian communities as pogroms.
What are the reported consequences?
A UN-appointed commission of inquiry found that Israeli authorities repeatedly failed to prevent foreseeable settler attacks and, in some cases, directly enabled them through army protection and the provision of weapons and funding. The source material also says OCHA found that settler attacks, demolitions and evictions forcibly displaced more Palestinians in the first four months of this year than during all of 2025.
More context: Tender advances Israel’s E1 settlement project in the West Bank.
Since January 2023, OCHA has recorded the complete or partial displacement of 107 communities, comprising 5,900 Palestinians, as a result of settler violence. The Israeli military has separately expelled another 32,000 Palestinians from their homes since January 2025, emptying the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps, according to the source.
- Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank are illegal under international law, according to the source material.
- Israel is advancing plans for the E1 settlement expansion near Jerusalem. Human rights organisations warn it could divide the West Bank and further restrict Palestinian movement.
- The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, publicly condemned the continuing siege of the three families in Qusra this month.
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