Settler violence and the new Nakba in the West Bank

The events unfolding in the occupied West Bank can no longer be understood merely as a succession of settler attacks or isolated outbreaks of violence.

What is taking shape is a systematic pattern of territorial domination that combines settlement expansion, increasing militarisation, the forced displacement of Palestinian communities and the gradual transformation of the territory’s demography.

The central question is no longer whether violence has intensified, but whether Palestine is witnessing the continuation of a historical process that began in 1948: the Nakba.

The Arabic word Nakba—”catastrophe”—is commonly associated with the forced displacement of approximately 750,000 Palestinians during the establishment of the State of Israel and the destruction of more than 450 Palestinian towns and villages.

Increasingly, however, historians and scholars view it not as a historical event confined to the past, but as an ongoing process of territorial dispossession, social fragmentation and demographic replacement.

From this perspective, the West Bank has become the principal arena in which a new territorial reality is being gradually imposed at the expense of the Palestinian presence.

This framework allows us to understand the recent escalation as something far more significant than a rise in violent incidents. Attacks on villages, the burning of homes and olive groves, the destruction of property, the killing of civilians, land confiscation, road closures and the expansion of settlement outposts cease to appear as disconnected episodes.

Instead, they reveal a coherent mechanism for transforming the occupied territory. Violence is not an aberration of the occupation; it is one of its principal instruments.

This is precisely the defining characteristic of settler colonialism. Unlike classical colonialism, which primarily seeks economic exploitation, settler colonialism aims to progressively replace the Indigenous population with a new settler society, permanently reshaping the territory’s demography, geography and sovereignty.

From this perspective, Israeli settlements are not merely residential developments but the central political infrastructure of the contemporary colonisation of Palestine.

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Over recent weeks, the West Bank has witnessed a particularly alarming acceleration of this process. As armed settlers intensify attacks on Palestinian villages, the Israeli military has significantly expanded its presence throughout the occupied territory. 

The combination of settler violence and military reinforcement forms part of a broader strategy designed to consolidate settlement expansion while creating the conditions for the gradual displacement of the Palestinian population.

International organisations have documented a sharp increase in settler attacks, the destruction of Palestinian property and the displacement of entire communities, particularly in Area C of the occupied West Bank.

In numerous cases, Israeli forces have been accused of either standing by during settler assaults or acting in coordination with them, reinforcing allegations of institutional complicity and of the use of civilian violence as a complementary instrument of military occupation.

The consequences extend far beyond the loss of lives and property. Settlement expansion fragments Palestinian territory, restricts freedom of movement, undermines economic activity, alters the demographic balance and weakens the territorial continuity essential for the viability of a future Palestinian state.

In other words, the objective is not merely to control land, but to redefine who will be able to inhabit it.

Drawing parallels between today’s reality and the Nakba of 1948 does not suggest that history is simply repeating itself. The original Nakba unfolded amid the war surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel.

Today, the process operates through more gradual mechanisms sustained by permanent military occupation, colonial expansion, everyday settler violence and the deliberate deterioration of living conditions in Palestinian communities.

The methods have changed, but the underlying logic of creating irreversible facts on the ground remains unmistakably recognisable.

It is perhaps this transformation in methods that makes the process more difficult to identify. Because there is no single moment of rupture, the violence is often perceived as a series of disconnected crises.

Viewed within a broader historical perspective, however, these developments reveal the continuity of a colonial project aimed at permanently reshaping the geography and demography of historic Palestine.

The real question, therefore, is no longer whether there is a “new Nakba”.

A more accurate conclusion may be that the Nakba never ended. As long as settler attacks, settlement expansion, military protection and forced displacement continue to operate in concert, the line separating episodic violence from a sustained policy of colonisation becomes increasingly blurred.

Failing to recognise this dynamic risks acknowledging only in retrospect a historical process whose defining features are already visible across today’s occupied West Bank.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.