Settler Violence as State Wrongful Act and Third State Obligations

[Dr. Mais Qandeel is an Associate Professor of International Law at Örebro University, Sweden. She holds a Ph.D. in international humanitarian law from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.]

The Israeli ongoing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is not disconnected from the killings, torture, forcible transfer by Israeli military and settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It is important to note that at the time of writing this post, the harrowing Israeli mass killing of Palestinians continues and is overshadowed by Israel’s war and negotiations with Iran. Israel’s efforts to shifting the world’s focus are allowing it to cover-up its brutal genocide and starvation in Gaza, including weaponizing food and aid, and to carry out brutal operations in the West Bank.

Between 7 October 2023 and 18 June 2025, Israel killed at least 55,637 and injured 129,880 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. A study: Violent and Nonviolent Death Tolls for the Gaza War: New Primary Evidence presents the results of the actual estimate number of deaths is  83,000 Palestinians in Gaza due to Israeli bombardment and shooting at civilians, including those who were killed while at designated safe routes and humanitarian aid distribution centres, imposed starvation, diseases, and intentional attacks leading to the collapse of the healthcare systems. A Harvard Dataverse reveals that Israel has “disappeared” at least 377,000 Palestinians since the start of its genocidal campaign against the Gaza Strip in 2023.  Notwithstanding the Israeli blockade on Gaza, starvation of the entire population and preventing live saving products to enter the Strip, Israeli settlers themselves have been participating in an intensive conduct of obstructing, damaging and vandalising humanitarian aid trucks bound to enter Gaza. 

At the same time, Israel has escalated its attacks in the West Bank. Israeli forces and settlers killed around 1,000, and  injured 7,000 Palestinians, damaging and burning  Palestinian property and livestock in West Bank only since October 2023. In less than two years, settlers have conducted acts of terrorism which led to thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinians in at least 7 areas in the West Bank. By 22 May 2025, it has been reported that Israeli settlers conducting these acts of terrorism have forcibly driven more than 30 Bedouin communities, which includes 323 families, to leave their homes, lands and livestock. Some are forcibly removed by Israeli military and armed settlers from their homes and are prevented from returning. On 26 June 2025, Israeli settlers and soldiers launched deadly raids on Palestinian towns across the occupied West Bank, killing four, including children. They also attacked and set on fire several Palestinian properties. Such Israeli attacks have become a routine of violence and terror (see here, here and here). Settler violence, as a matter of fact, has been an Israeli central mechanism to systemically dispossess and forcibly transfer Palestinians.

Some countries have imposed sanctions, which comprise of asset freeze – and the provision of funds or economic resources and a travel ban on a few individuals and organisations known for their violent and extreme attacks against Palestinians. Considering the illegal status of Israeli presence in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), illegal settlements, outposts and settlers, this phenomenon raises many legal questions and concerns. 

This post provides a brief legal assessment – within the provisions of the law of occupation – on Third States obligations to take measures against Israeli settler violence. In this post, I build on the study Violence and State Attribution: The Case of Occupied Palestine and the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion of July 2024 on Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. I briefly discuss the legal basis on which Third States must prevent, stop and punish extremist settler violence as a form of State atrocities. I argue that these sanctions imposed by a few countries are insufficient and misplaced. Additionally, they are redirecting State attributed internationally wrongful acts to a handful of individuals – designated as terrorists – while allowing the State itself to carry on and allowing such acts. 

Israeli Settler Extremism, Incitement and the Designation of Terrorism

According to Amnesty International, Israel has unleashed “a brutal wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, carrying out unlawful killings, including by using lethal force without necessity or disproportionately.” Amnesty International has also reported that in this wave of violence, Palestinians are subject to increased arbitrary detention, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees, bombing and military raids of Palestinian cities and villages, extremist settler attacks and failure to investigate incidents of torture and death. In the beginning of 2023, Palestinians had witnessed an intensive and increased level of Israeli violence. Human Rights Watch described the situation, after October 2023, as “Israeli authorities are tightening their repression in the West Bank and Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians are surging.”

Importantly, settler violence has been categorized as settler terrorism. France called it a “policy of terror” , the  European Union labelled it as “settler terrorism” and some 14 countries described it as “violent acts committed by extremist settlers, which are terrorising Palestinian communities”. More specifically, Israeli extremists, in unlimited ways, have reflected violence on Palestinians, including killings, physical harm and injuries, damaging property, burning crops and trees, killing animals, stealing harvest and livelihoods, land and property grabbing and terrorizing, intimidating and forcibly pushing Palestinians out of their land. This list brings only a few examples of such conducts (see here and here). These conducts have been backed, supported and facilitated by Israeli authorities, and they are executed under Israel’s full auspices, including distributing some 120,000 firearms and rifles to settlers (see here and here). While Israel ignores its obligations as an occupying power, these conducts are directly attributed to Israel, as a State (see here and here). 

Israeli officials, such as Ben-Gvir, the security minister who is convicted of terrorism, and Smotrich, the finance minister, have been openly and plainly inciting violence, genocide and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, as well as against Palestinian citizens of Israel. Noting that the Israeli security minister and the Israeli army has been continuedly distributing arms to settlers. For example, Ben-Gvir suggested that a medal of appreciation be awarded and legal immunity be provided to the settler who killed a Palestinian youth during an Israeli settler attack carried out in Burqa. These Israeli settlers have been deeply encouraged and enabled to conduct terrorist attacks not only by Israeli officials but also by the US Trump Administration. Trump has cancelled all Biden-imposed sanctions on Israeli extremists, groups and individuals, who have been involved in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. This has unleashed Israeli settlers’ violence, calling themselves “the kings of Judea and Samaria” – the administrative division used by Israel to refer to the entire West Bank – as a form of domination and terrorism. Israeli settlers carried out more than 1200 terrorist attacks against Palestinians and Palestinian communities, during the first five months of 2025. Notably, Israel’s legislative and administrative regime in the West Bank is allowing for the institutional unwillingness to prosecute and indict settlers, leading to a systematic lack of law enforcement against settlers. The failure to investigate such incidents have led to impunity and to an increase in the frequency and severity of such attacks.

In July 2024, the USA, EU and a handful of countries had imposed sanctions on five individual Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, violent activists, blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza, and three Israeli entities. In July 2025, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway placed sanctions on two Israeli government ministers, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, for inciting extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. These five countries have sanctioned the two ministers, who will face travel bans and asset freeze, in their personal capacity, placing no restrictions on the ministries they lead. It is important to note, however, that these ministers and other Israeli officials have not only been inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, they have also been inciting genocide, forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing against all Palestinians as a group, given their positions of power and influence. Thus, these measures must not be in the personal capacity of these officials, but directed as State-wide sanctions. The countries detailed that “the rising violence and intimidation by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities in the West Bank must stop. Measures today cannot be seen in isolation from events in Gaza where Israel must uphold International Humanitarian Law.” This statement triggers the discussions on the ICJ’s assessment of settler violence in its 2024 Advisory Opinion and Third States obligations under IHL rules.

Settler Violence, the ICJ’s 2024 Advisory Opinion and Third States Obligations 

The ICJ dedicated paragraphs 148-154 to assess the issue of settler violence against Palestinians. Israeli “settlers often subject Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to extensive violence, which Israeli authorities fail to prevent or to punish … [in fact,] Israeli security forces intervene with unnecessary or disproportionate force against Palestinians in the aftermath of settler attacks” (paras 150 and 152). The Court concluded that “Israel’s systematic failure to prevent or to punish attacks by settlers against the life or bodily integrity of Palestinians, as well as Israel’s excessive use of force against Palestinians, is inconsistent with [its obligations under Article 46 of the Hague Regulations, Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 6, paragraph 1, and Article 7 of the ICCPR]” (para 154). Article 46 of the Hague Regulations mandates the protection of family honour, the lives of persons and private property. Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention asserts that protected persons, including civilians in occupied territory, “are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs” and that “they shall at all times be humanely treated, and protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof”. Whereas Article 6.1 of ICCPR safeguards the right to live, Article 7 protects against torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The overall discussion of the ICJ focuses on Israel’s failure to protect Palestinian victims and punish Israeli attackers, ignoring that setter violence is encouraged, supported and facilitated by Israel itself. Settler violence is not a random violent incident; it is a central tool that serves Israel’s strategy to systematically dispossess and forcibly transfer Palestinians. Israeli authorities facilitate this violence and later legitimize dispassion through military orders and court rulings. This has been the mechanism with which Israel expands its illegal settlements while fragmenting Palestinian communities and accomplishes its annexation of the West Bank in whole or part. Thus, Israeli settler violence is an illegal practice that is attributable to Israel, because Israel facilitates, legitimizes and enables settlers to carry out these conducts under the protection, direction and control of State forces and officials. Thus, Israel as a State is responsible for such internationally wrongful acts and obligated to provide for reparation for Palestinian victims. This also raises the question of Third State obligations, including the EU, under the relevant international obligations and the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion. 

As the ICJ ruled that the Israeli presence and its associated settlement regime in the oPt is unlawful in 2024 and that Israel is obligated to bring it to an end and provide full reparation to Palestinians. Third States have the obligation not to recognize any changes to the status of occupied territory and refrain from recognizing and rendering aid to maintain the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the oPt. It is for all States, while respecting the Charter of the United Nations and international law, to ensure the end of any obstacles to Palestinian self-determination and to ensure compliance by Israel with IHL. Third States, thus, have the legal obligation to systematically take actions against and impose measures on the entirety of Israeli settlement, settlers and the State that sustains them. This is also an obligation under Common Article 1 of the four Geneva conventions. Thus, cherry picking of individuals and imposing sanctions on them, even those governmental officials in their individual capacity, is a weak distraction that would not halt settler violence or incitement to settler violence. It does qualify Third States to completely and meaningfully meet their international obligations. Actually, the EU itself has said that Israel is guilty of human rights and humanitarian law violations and is in violation of Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. However, the EU is unwilling to use its economic power to prevent and stop such abuses. Today, the discussion should extend to include Third States obligations under the Genocide Convention to consider appropriate measures for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide and incitement to genocide. As much as these third States are failing to prevent and punish the crime of Genocide in Gaza, they are failing to prevent and punish human rights abuses and atrocities in the West Bank. Hence, Third States are in violation of their own international obligations, including those under Common Article 1 of the Geneva Convention, and a disregard to the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion of 2024.

Legally, sanctions on a handful of individuals cannot be considered as a fulfilment and respect of international obligations. Taking such actions is a planned strategy of these countries to deviate from their obligations and a distraction from reaching compliance. It must be noted that it is not the Western countries that are under such an obligation, it is the obligation of every State that has ratified the Geneva Conventions. The difference with States such as the UK, France and the USA is that they carry a powerful leverage to make a difference to prevent and stop atrocities. This leverage ranges from arm and trade deals to political pressure.

Photo attribution: “On the road from Jenin to Nablus, West Bank, Palestine” by Almonroth is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0