Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said Israel enabled "murderous" settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, adding the attacks were "designed to lead gradually to ethnic cleansing and mass expulsion".
In a Friday article published in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Olmert said, "There's no other way of defining what's happening in the territories except as a violent, murderous war," Olmert said, adding that attacks against Palestinians were "designed to lead gradually to ethnic cleansing and mass expulsion".
Last year was one of the most violent on record for Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to United Nations data that shows more than a thousand Palestinians were killed between October 7, 2023 and October 17, 2025, in Israeli attacks carried out by Israeli forces and settlers, according to the UN, including over 220 children.
In 2025, OCHA documented at least 1,680 settler attacks, an average of five per day.
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said settlers were attacking Palestinians “daily”, including “shooting, beating and threatening residents, throwing stones, torching fields, destroying trees and crops, stealing produce, blocking roads, invading homes, and burning cars”.
Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. Today, 600,000 to 750,000 settlers live in more than 250 settlements and outposts across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. Many of these are near Palestinian towns and villages, often leading to attacks on Palestinian residents and severe movement restrictions for Palestinians.
Olmert’s comments came days after Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that only "a handful of kids" were responsible for the violence and that they were addressing the rise in attacks.
"When they're talking about it, they're talking about a handful of kids," Netanyahu said, referring to media coverage of the settler violence.
"We actually located it. It's about 70 kids. They're not from the West Bank. They're actually… teenagers who come from broken homes, and they do things like chopping olive trees, and sometimes they try to burn a home."
Olmert said armed settler groups operated with near-total impunity, often baked by Israeli forces.
"The fact that in the vast majority of cases the rioters aren't detained is no coincidence," he said.
"I would claim - with full responsibility - that this is the government's policy."
He pointed to the decision to halt the use of administrative detention against settlers as a turning point that signalled impunity and emboldened armed groups in the West Bank.
Olmert added that this had created a "comprehensive, coordinated and well-financed campaign" of settler violence, supported by political leaders and local authorities.
“This is isn't the 'hilltop youth' or a small group of delinquents who are violating the rules of proper conduct - it's a military, terrorist, violent militia that murders, torches, beats, shoots, and in a systematic, planned and organised manner destroys everything in the territories that isn't Jewish," he said.
"The Jewish terrorists in the territories do not operate in isolation from a very broad swath of supporters, who represent the various arms of the government, the cabinet, the police and the army.”
"The Israel Police cooperate with the terror in the territories. There's no other way to describe what's happening there but as active, planned and deliberate support by the police for the murderous hooliganism of the Jewish terrorists," he added.
Olmert himself approved illegal settlement expansion between 2006 and 2009 while serving as prime minister. Since leaving office, he has been accused of overseeing war crimes in Gaza during Israel's 2008–2009 assault on the enclave, during which over 1,400 Palestinians were killed and over 100,000 left homeless.
