Jewish anti-immigrant violence hits record high in 2024

Violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians reached a record high in 2024, The Middle East Eye reports.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has recorded 1,400 attacks on Palestinians by residents of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. This includes attacks on individuals, arson attempts, the destruction of gardens and orchards, and pogroms in Arab neighborhoods. This represents an average of four attacks per day against Palestinians, resulting in physical injury, death, and property damage.

According to the UN, Israeli security forces killed 800 people in the West Bank last year, injured 6,500, and displaced 4,700.

Settler violence has a long history, but it has escalated sharply since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip. The settlers' arbitrary actions have been compounded by Israeli government restrictions on Palestinians from entering their own towns and villages.

700,000 people currently live in the 300 illegal Jewish settlements built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967.