8 hours ago
12
Israel has not prosecuted its citizens for killing Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank since the start of this decade, , a Guardian analysis of legal data and public records show, creating impunity for a campaign of violence.
Attacks have spurred former prime minister Ehud Olmert to call for an intervention by the international criminal court (ICC), to “save the Palestinians and us [Israelis]” from state-backed settler violence, carried out with the complicity and sometimes participation of the police and military.
“I have decided not only to not remain silent, but to draw the attention of the ICC in The Hague so that it may take enforcement measures and issue arrest warrants,’” Olmert said in written comments to the Guardian.
The former Israeli security commanders demanded urgent action to stop “almost daily” attacks on Palestinians. In a public letter to the country’s current military chief they warned that failure to tackle “Jewish terrorism” poses an existential threat.
This month Israeli settlers and police have killed 10 Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, including brothers aged five and seven and their parents who were all shot in the head as the family returned from a Ramadan shopping trip.
“We are no longer talking about a handful of lawbreaking hooligans. This is organised activity, which sometimes includes those wearing uniforms, who shoot at innocent people and burn the property and homes of civilians,” the letter said.
Signatories to the letter, which has not been previously reported, included two former heads of Israel’s military – one of whom also served as defence minister – five chiefs of the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence agencies and four former police commissioners.
Their call to enforce the law ascribed past military success to the “moral strength” of the Israeli armed forces and said it was vital for future victories. “Without it, we have no right to exist,” they said.
Since 2020 Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 1,100 Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, at least a quarter of whom were children, UN data shows. No one has been charged over any of these deaths.
The last deadly attack by Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank that led to an indictment was in 2019, public records and data from legal rights group Yesh Din shows. The last killing by an Israeli civilian that led to an indictment was in 2018. An Israeli court ruled this week that the defendant threw a rock that hit Aisha Rabi.
Israeli security forces are responsible for the majority of Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank, but violence by Israeli civilians intensified after the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks, as Israel waged a war in Gaza which a UN commission, rights groups and genocide scholars say is genocide.
Murders, arson, theft and other crimes by Israeli settlers, including incidents caught on camera and alleged sexual assault, have gone almost entirely unpunished.
Between 2020 and 2025, over 96% of police investigations into settler violence in the occupied West Bank concluded without an indictment, Yesh Din said. Out of 368 cases only eight, or 2% of the total, ended with full or partial convictions.
Olmert called for international prosecutions of violent settlers who are “assisted, supported and inspired by government circles” as they wage a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Pogroms in Palestinian villages are reminiscent of those “once directed against Jews in Europe”, he said.
“If law enforcement authorities in Israel do not fulfil their duty, perhaps international legal authorities will do what is necessary to save the Palestinians and us from the criminal acts being committed by Jewish terrorists right in front of all our eyes.”.
The Israeli settler population in the occupied West Bank has increased steadily for several decades, including when Olmert and the security elite now speaking out about violence held positions of command or political power.
“Palestinians might welcome this Israeli criticism, but they have not forgotten that many of these former officials facilitated the expansion of the settlement enterprise, and with it settler and military violence,” said Amjad Iraqi, senior Israel/Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“Such Israeli critics often give the impression that settler violence could be tamed by simply ousting the (current) far right government. That would certainly have an effect, but it doesn’t recognise that the settlements are a project of the state that was shaped and led across the political spectrum.”
Many Israelis also seek to draw a distinction between settler attacks and use of force by the Israeli police and army. Olmert called for ICC intervention only over civilian violence, although he said there were “too many” incidents where Israelis in uniform killed Palestinian civilians.
From 2020 to 2024, the most recent year for which data is available, Israeli security forces were less likely than settlers to face charges for harming Palestinians.
Palestinians submitted 1,746 complaints about harm caused by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank in that period, including over 600 about killings, Yesh Din said. Less than 1% ended in indictments.
“The Israeli law-enforcement systems, both civil and military, function less as mechanisms for justice and more as shields for perpetrators,” said Yesh Din director Ziv Stahl. “They repeatedly produce stalled investigations and closed cases, effectively prioritising immunity over the rule of law.”
For years, Israel’s legal establishment considered the cases that reached court a key defence for Israel in international tribunals. When a robust national legal system prosecutes crimes, international courts are less likely to have jurisdiction.
“The system is programmed to manufacture impunity, not accountability. ” said Michael Sfard, a Israeli human rights lawyer. “But it was smart enough to also have very rare occasions of accountability, that could be referred to as examples of how law enforcement was working.”
In recent years, however, judges and prosecutors faced intense pressure over false accusations that these cases were part of a system stacked against Israeli defendants, and prosecution of violence against Palestinians has largely stopped.
“It is too costly [for the Israeli judicial system],” Sfard said. “We’re not paying a price internationally for the impunity. And they are paying a price internally for this performance of accountability, which is anyway a lie.”
In February two former justice ministers from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party signed a letter accusing the current Israeli government of allowing the “active and horrific ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
“The ultimate legal and moral responsibility for stopping this campaign of terror lies with the Israeli government. It is not doing so,” said the letter, which has also not been previously reported in the international press.
It was signed by more than 20 prominent legal figures, including Dan Meridor and Meir Sheetrit, who both served as justice minister for Likud.
“Anyone who lends a hand to these [settler attacks], by deed or omission, bears responsibility, including soldiers and especially commanders in the regular and reserve forces. Orders to carry out or allow these attacks are clearly illegal.”
Israel’s military chief, Eyal Zamir, last week also demanded action against settler violence, calling on “all authorities in the country to act against this phenomenon and stop it before it is too late”. Israel’s military have sovereignty over occupied territory.
Beyond the occupied West Bank, there have been two indictments of Israeli security forces for killing Palestinian civilians since 2020.
An Israeli border police officer who shot an autistic man in East Jerusalem in 2021 was acquitted of charges of “reckless killing” two years later. In 2023 a lieutenant was charged over the 2021 death of farmer Hasan Sami Al-Borno, who was killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza. He has not stood trial.
The Israeli police did not respond to requests for comments on failure to investigate or prevent settler violence.
Quique Kierszenbaum contributed reporting
