UN: Settlers Carried Out 397 Attacks in West Bank in October, Most Since Monitoring Began in 2006

The UN agency that tracks humanitarian conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory says it documented 397 settler attacks across the West Bank between October 1 and 26, the highest monthly figure recorded since it began monitoring such incidents in 2006.

The count, released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in its latest situation report, does not even include the final five days of the month.

OCHA said 62 attacks took place between October 20 and 26 alone, targeting 49 Palestinian communities across the West Bank.

Of those 62 attacks in the single week, OCHA linked 38 to the olive harvest season, the period each autumn when Palestinian farmers return to groves that are often adjacent to or surrounded by Israeli settlements and outposts. Settler violence tied to the harvest, including tree burning, physical assault, and blocked access to land, has been documented by UN agencies and Palestinian rights groups in previous years, but OCHA's October figures mark a sharp escalation.

The same weekly report documented 57 Palestinians injured, including nine children, in attacks during that period by settlers and by Israeli forces across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. OCHA attributed 23 of those injuries to settler attacks and 34 to Israeli forces' gunfire and assaults.

A photograph distributed by Anadolu Agency and credited to photojournalist Issam Rimawi shows a confrontation on October 9 in Deir Ibzi, a town near Ramallah, where Israeli settlers accompanied by Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinian farmers harvesting olives. The image offers a visual anchor to the broader pattern OCHA describes: settlers moving onto or near Palestinian agricultural land during harvest season, with Israeli military personnel present rather than intervening to stop the confrontation.

OCHA has tracked settler violence in the West Bank since 2006 as part of its mandate to monitor the humanitarian toll of the occupation. The October total, even as a partial-month figure, surpasses every previous monthly count in that twenty-year record, according to the agency's report.

The figures arrive without independent corroboration beyond the OCHA report itself and the photograph, though OCHA's institutional data collection is treated as a baseline reference point by humanitarian and rights monitors working in the territory. Occupation Watch will continue to track subsequent OCHA reporting on West Bank violence as the full-month and following-month figures become available.