Israeli leaders denounce settler attacks amid US warning on Gaza ceasefire

Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir on Thursday condemned the violence by illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and said the military “will not tolerate criminal behaviour by a small minority that tarnishes the law-abiding public”.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog also condemned the raids, calling on authorities to “act decisively to eradicate the phenomenon”.

The comments come as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that settler violence in the occupied West Bank could have direct implications on the truce in Gaza. 

“There is certainly some concern that events in the West Bank could have repercussions that could undermine what we are doing in Gaza,” Rubio told reporters.

“We don’t expect that to happen, and we will do everything we can to ensure that it doesn’t,” he said. 

Israeli settlers have been shooting at foreign solidarity activists and Palestinian farmers, and setting fire to olive trees across the occupied West Bank. 

The Palestinian Authority’s Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) said that since the harvest began in the first week of October, there have been at least 158 attacks across the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

More than 15,000 trees have been attacked since October 2024, the CWRC said. 

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has condemned the alarming surge in Israeli settler attacks targeting Palestinian olive farmers across the occupied West Bank.

“October 2025 is on track to be the most violent month since Unrwa began tracking settler violence in 2013,” the agency said in a statement.

The Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs said it has recorded 27 Israeli settler intrusions into Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the last month.