Understanding Why Experts and Officials Classify Israeli Settler Attacks in the West Bank as Pogroms

Children stand outside a mosque that was burned during an attack by Israeli settlers early in the morning in the West Bank village of Qusra on Sunday, July 26, 2026. Hebrew graffiti on the wall reads "Revenge Benayahu," referencing an Israeli settler killed during clashes with Palestinians in the village of Tell the previous Friday.

Attacks on Palestinian communities by illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, frequently backed by Israeli forces, have accelerated over the past month. The surge began after settlers from the illegal Havat Gilad settlement targeted Palestinians’ homes on the eastern edge of Tal, southwest of Nablus. Since then, the Israeli military has conducted raids across multiple towns, villages, and refugee camps, leading to ongoing arrests, home searches, and mounting violence.

A prolonged 15-day siege on three families comprising 15 people, including two children, in the village of Qusra drew rare public condemnation from US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee earlier this month. Simultaneously, Israel is advancing plans for the E1 (East 1) settlement near Jerusalem, which human rights groups warn will divide the West Bank in two, obstruct Palestinian freedom of movement, and threaten the viability of a Palestinian state.

Experts increasingly describe these assaults as pogroms. UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese characterized the violence against defenceless civilians in the West Bank as "pogroms."

Settlers, often aided by the military, have targeted Palestinian homes, businesses, and agricultural fields for decades. However, these incidents escalated following the start of Israel's war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, and have grown particularly severe over the past month.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank remain illegal under international law. According to the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, approximately 780,000 Israeli settlers now occupy the West Bank and East Jerusalem, spread across 192 settlements and 400 outposts. These cover 71 percent of Area C—under full Israeli civil and military control—and 91 percent of the Jordan Valley.

Settlers frequently establish outposts near Palestinian villages without formal approval, launching campaigns of harassment that include killing livestock, cutting supply lines, and damaging property to drive residents away. Once established, these outposts often receive retroactive government legalization. More recently, settlers have placed tents adjacent to individual homes, such as in the Ras al-Ein area of Qusra, cutting off utilities and isolating families while Israeli soldiers frequently arrive to remove the residents rather than the settlers.

The UN humanitarian affairs office recorded more than 1,330 settler-related attacks between January and late July, averaging six per day—the fastest pace since systematic tracking began two decades ago. A UN-appointed commission of inquiry found that Israeli authorities repeatedly failed to prevent these attacks and sometimes directly enabled them through protection, weapons, and funding.

Furthermore, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that settler violence, demolitions, and evictions displaced more Palestinians in the first four months of this year than during the entirety of 2025. OCHA noted that 107 communities comprising 5,900 Palestinians have been displaced since January 2023, while the Israeli military has expelled an additional 32,000 Palestinians from the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams camps since January 2025.

Dictionary definitions of a "pogrom" vary. The British Collins Dictionary defines it as "organised, official violence against a group of people for racial or religious reasons," while the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary describes it as "the organised killing of large numbers of people, because of their race or religion." Merriam-Webster calls it "an organised massacre of helpless people," and the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as "an act of organised cruel behaviour or killing that is done to a large group of people because of their race or religion." The term originated to describe violent mob attacks on Jewish communities in the Russian Empire in 1881. Unlike "genocide" or "crimes against humanity," "pogrom" lacks a formal definition under international law.

Beyond Francesca Albanese, Israeli officials have also used the term. Following a February 26, 2023 attack by hundreds of settlers in Huwara that left one Palestinian dead and numerous properties burned, the Israeli military’s then-commander in the West Bank, Yehuda Fuchs, referred to the incident as a "pogrom," a classification also documented by the US State Department.

The Israeli-Palestinian human rights organization B’Tselem has similarly applied the term, publishing a report titled, "The pogroms are working – the transfer is already happening." B’Tselem spokesperson Yair Dvir stated that settler violence has evolved into a systematic state mechanism intended to ethnically cleanse parts of the West Bank. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and scholar Raheel Dhattiwala have similarly noted that these systematic assaults carried out with government approval align with the characteristics of pogroms.