The life of 32-year-old Abdul Rahman Jabr changed more than a year ago when his home in the village of al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank was targeted by Israeli settlers. After the attack, he put up barbed wire in an attempt to fend off future settler pogroms. The house, built by Abdul Rahman in early 2023 before his marriage, is located on the outskirts of the village in an area with a long history of settler violence.
He now lives there with his wife and their two-year-old daughter, but settler attacks on his home and his neighbours have intensified over the past year. His vehicle was set on fire by settlers in April 2024, and his home’s windows were smashed with stones. He cannot count the number of times his home has been targeted.
In the past week alone, settlers reached his property seven times, which forced him to miss work to stay at home to protect his wife and child. How could I protect them from the settlers when there is no protection for us? I began surrounding the house with barbed wire and an iron fence.
This isn’t a sufficient measure, but it’s the only thing I can do on my own,” he told Al Jazeera. We’ve made countless appeals, but no one listens, so we had to take this step. At the very least, it has helped keep their livestock away from our yards.” Abdul Rahman’s experiences are not unique.
They are part of a rapid rise in settler activity across the West Bank since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023. Settlers carried out 14,742 attacks against Palestinians, their land or properties from October 7, 2023, to October 4, 2026, according to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, which is part of the PLO. In the first seven months of 2026 alone, the commission recorded 4,113 attacks, ranging from assaults on people to vandalism of orchards.
This was a 63 percent increase compared with the same period in 2025, and this month saw a spate of attacks on Palestinian farmers as they harvested olives. Palestinians are now beginning to organise to protect their families and homes from settler attacks. In the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, a group of young Palestinian men have repelled several settler attacks in recent months.
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