CAIR urges Trump administration to restore sanctions over West Bank settler attacks
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says the attacks on Palestinian farms in the occupied West Bank amount to “ethnic cleansing”, urging the Trump administration to restore sanctions on Israeli settlers.
“The olive industry is essential to the survival of Palestinians in the West Bank. These violent settler thugs, encouraged and supported by the Israeli government, are intentionally seeking to deprive Palestinians of their livelihood,” CAIR said in a statement.
“The Israeli government must be punished for its enabling of terrorist activity in the West Bank, which is ultimately designed to result in the ethnic cleansing of that illegally occupied land.”
Palestinian-owned farms across the West Bank have faced repeated settler attacks. The Palestinian Farmers’ Union, cited by CAIR, said it has recorded more than 50 incidents of violence or destruction since the start of October.
As we reported earlier, the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said Israeli forces and settlers carried out 2,350 attacks across the West Bank last month.
Israel plans to build 356 new settlement units
Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing has published two tenders this week for the construction of 356 new housing units in a settlement southeast of the Palestinian city of Ramallah.
The plan is to build 342 units across five compounds as well as 14 homes for reservists’ families in Geva Binyamin (Adam), according to Israel’s Peace Now movement, which added that tenders were issued in August for 4,030 housing units in the settlements of Ma’ale Adumim and Ariel.
So far this year, tenders have been published for 5,667 settlement housing units, which is by far the highest annual total ever recorded. If all these homes are built, another 25,000 settlers could live in the occupied West Bank, Peace Now said.
The group, which backs a two-state solution, said that the Netanyahu government “is exploiting every moment in power to destroy Israel’s chances for a future of peace and prosperity”.
“The American president may have declared that there will be no annexation, but the Israeli government is doing everything it can to realise the annexation on the ground and turn Israel into an apartheid state,” it said.
UN data shows continued demolition of Palestinian homes across West Bank
A large-scale trend of demolitions targeting Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied West Bank is continuing unabated, according to OCHA’s demolition and displacement dashboard.
Since 2009, thousands of structures, including homes, livestock shelters, water tanks, and donor-funded buildings, have been demolished or seized by Israeli authorities, fuelling displacement and creating a coercive environment, OCHA said.
According to the data, in 2025 alone, at least 1,434 structures were demolished, displacing more than 1,800 people.
Much of the demolition activity is tied to areas where Palestinians face near-impossible access to Israeli building permits, particularly in Area C and in occupied East Jerusalem. OCHA says this pattern effectively restricts Palestinian development and population growth in those zones.
