Israeli settlers use minors to harass Palestinian communities in West Bank: Report

Israeli settlers regularly send groups of Israeli children and minors to harass Palestinian communities and destroy agricultural infrastructure across the occupied West Bank, according to a report.

Israeli minors are playing a growing role in attacks on Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank, according to a report published by Haaretz on Saturday.

The incidents form part of a broader pattern of forced displacement that has uprooted dozens of native Palestinians in recent years.

The report reveals that settlers send children, some as young as 12, regularly from illegal settlement outposts to harass Bedouin and rural Palestinian communities.

They arrive on foot, on tractors, or riding ATVs. They herd flocks into Palestinian residential areas, vandalize property, threaten residents, and damage water infrastructure that communities rely on for survival.

The violence follows a clear and repeated pattern. Minors enter communities day and night. They empty water tanks, uproot pipes, destroy solar panels, break fences, and intimidate residents, including women and elderly people.

In many cases, they carry clubs, knives, or other weapons. Many incidents include physical assaults on Palestinians and activists who document the attacks.

The report reveals that these acts are not random. It describes a division of labor between minors and adults. Children exhaust communities through constant harassment over weeks or months. Armed adults then arrive to deliver more violent attacks, forcing residents to flee.

Several activists have described the minors as “child soldiers” used to carry out a long-term strategy of displacement.

Data from humanitarian organizations shows that more than 70 Palestinian herding communities were forcibly displaced between 2022 and November 2025.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that around 700 Palestinian families, totaling nearly 3,900 people, have been uprooted during this period.

At the same time, illegal Israeli settlement farming outposts expanded their control over an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 hectares of land.

These areas were traditionally used by Palestinians for grazing and agriculture. Access to the land has now been almost entirely blocked.

As of November 2025, there were 360 settlement outposts in the West Bank. About 140 were established since the start of the genocide in Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Most are individual farming outposts that rely heavily on Israeli minors to maintain daily attacks and territorial control.

Despite years of warnings, Israeli authorities have never intervened. Activists say so-called welfare authorities rarely intervene, even when children appear neglected or ill.

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark advisory opinion declaring Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories illegal and calling for the removal of all settlements from the West Bank and East al-Quds.

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli regime’s armed forces and illegal settlers have killed at least 1,102, and wounded more than 11,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli regime has also abducted around 21,000 Palestinians during the same period.

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