Palestine weekly wrap: Israeli settlers rampage through West Bank villages 

“We are building the Land of Israel and destroying the idea of a Palestinian state,” said Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Friday. The action that brought on his comments: Israel’s uprooting of 3,000 Palestinian-planted trees in the occupied West Bank.

The destruction of the trees – so that illegal Israeli settlements can expand – was one of a number of Israeli actions this week that emphasised Israel’s continued push to expand its dominance over the West Bank. And it comes as Israel maintains its violent posture in Gaza – killing at least 13 Palestinians there, with a particular focus on police officers.

The Oslo bill

On Sunday, the Israeli Knesset Ministerial Committee backed a bill that would formally repeal the 1993 Oslo Accords – the cornerstone agreement that created the Palestinian Authority and divided the West Bank into Areas A, B and C. Limor Son Har-Melech, the far-right parliamentarian who submitted the legislation, was explicit about the intent: “We promised to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and now it is time to encourage settlement in Areas A and B [with full and partial Palestinian administrative control respectively] and cancel the disastrous Oslo Accords.”

According to Israeli media reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested that parliament postpone discussions of the bill. Justice Minister Yariv Levin, while falling in line with his party leader’s decision, expressed support for the bill in the future, saying “just as we returned to Sa-Nur, we will return to other places”.

Gaza and West Bank killings

In Gaza, a document obtained by the Times of Israel revealed that the so-called Board of Peace does not intend to hold Israel to ceasefire commitments if Hamas refuses to accept its disarmament framework – meaning Israel would not be pressured to stop its military strikes, aid restrictions, and continued expansion of the territory in Gaza under its control. At the same time, the European Union condemned Israel’s expansion of the “orange line” restricted zone, which now covers more than 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, saying it contradicts withdrawal commitments under the October “ceasefire”.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes continued in Gaza throughout the week. Those killed include Azzam al-Hayya, the son of Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya. Azzam al-Hayya died on Thursday from injuries sustained during an Israeli strike the night before in Gaza City.

Others killed in the last week include a child in Gaza City on May 5, two police officers in a Monday drone strike on a police vehicle in Khan Younis, and three more Palestinians in a strike on Maghazi refugee camp.

More than 854 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israel since the October “ceasefire”, and the cumulative death toll since October 2023 is now more than 72,740.

In the West Bank, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man on Monday during a raid on Qalandiya refugee camp; Israeli police said the man had opened fire on their forces, while the Palestinian state news agency Wafa reported that a resident was seriously injured by Israeli fire during the same operation – accounts that could not be independently reconciled.

According to the United Nations, at least 44 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in 2026 so far, including 13 by settlers – with more than 760 settler attacks documented, averaging six per day. Some 2,000 Palestinians, nearly 900 of them children, have been displaced in 2026 by settler violence and access restrictions alone.

Settler violence and land seizures

On Monday, the European Union agreed on a new set of sanctions targeting violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, as well as Hamas officials. The move was rejected by the Israeli government, with Foreign Minister Gideon Saar saying the sanctions were “without any basis”.

And yet, on the ground, settlers were on the rampage throughout last week.

According to local Palestinian activist networks, settlers, some of whom were armed, hiked through the villages of Abwein and Jilijliya, near Ramallah, occupying the Ein Sala spring and denying residents access. In Jalud, in the northern West Bank, settlers used bulldozers to uproot hundreds of olive trees overnight. In Deir Istiya, in Salfit governorate, settlers established a new outpost on land belonging to an Islamic religious endowment, extending a water pipeline from the nearby Revava settlement through Palestinian olive groves.

An additional illegal outpost was reported by activists being erected on May 11 in Rammun, east of Ramallah. In Bardala in the Jordan Valley, Israeli forces accompanied by bulldozers demolished 1.4 hectares (14 dunams) of greenhouses and destroyed water pipelines, causing losses estimated at more than one million shekels ($344,610), according to locals. In Sinjil, settlers installed surveillance cameras on Palestinian-owned land and continued blocking agricultural roads.

Then, in al-Asa’asa, south of Jenin, settlers forced a Palestinian family to exhume their father – 80-year-old Hussein Asasa, who had died of natural causes and been buried with permits coordinated with Israeli security forces – and rebury him elsewhere, on the grounds that the cemetery was located near the recently resettled Tarsala outpost. United Nations Human Rights Office head Ajith Sunghay called the incident “horrifying,” saying it “embodies the dehumanisation of Palestinians that we are witnessing unfold across the entire occupied Palestinian territory”.

In Umm al-Khair in Masafer Yatta, settlers occupied a donor-funded football pitch on May 9, chanting religious verses while children in jerseys watched in silence, village leader Khalil al-Hathaleen confirmed to Al Jazeera. In Khirbet Abu Falah, east of Ramallah, photos and videos from activists showed settlers staging a predawn raid, torching a car and spray-painting “revenge” on a house wall.