Take immediate steps to stop Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank

As the US/Israeli aggression on Iran, the Israeli ethnic cleansing of Lebanon, and the ongoing attacks and stopping of humanitarian aid to Gaza continue, so does the horrific rampaging and escalating violence of Israeli settlers and the occupation forces across the West Bank.

It is time for Canada to not just denounce this violence and ethnic cleansing, but take concrete actions to hold the apartheid-state accountable.

Take action, by sending a letter to foreign affairs minister Anand demanding immediate and tangible action. Copies will be sent to Canada’s rep for Palestine, your own elected official, and the leaders of the NDP and Green Party of Canada.

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Daily raids, beatings, shootings, kidnapping, arson attacks, destruction of property, and confiscation of livestock are taking place throughout the West Bank.

For example, yesterday, March 25, 2026, the West Bank updates from the Palestinian Red Crescent included:

♦️ 5 injuries resulting from beatings due to a settler attack in the village of Mukhmas near occupied Jerusalem.

♦️ 1 martyr and 3 injuries, one of them by live ammunition, after occupation forces chased a workers’ vehicle in the hills of Masafer Yatta.

♦️ Injuries to a 19-year-old young man as a result of a settler attack on him in Tayasir.

♦️ Live bullet injury to the leg during an incursion by occupation forces into the town of Beit Furik near Nablus.

♦️ 8 injuries from beatings and tear gas spraying in Masafer Yatta near Hebron as a result of a settler attack.

Followed by the news that the young Palestinian man Yusri Majed Abu Qabita (31 years old) was martyred, and 3 young men were injured with moderate to serious wounds by Israeli occupation forces gunfire in Masafer Yatta.

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Day after day, these horrendous attacks continue, with virtually no western media coverage, and at best nuanced rhetoric from politicians and diplomats.

It is in this regard, Just Peace Advocates joins Al Haq to express “profound concern that the international community continues in its failure to take effective measures to ensure the protection of Palestinians from escalating Israeli settler violence and terror being perpetrated across the occupied West Bank.”

As Al Haq in its March 13, 2026 statement said:

These violent attacks are not isolated incidents, but a direct result of Israel's aggressive campaign of settlement across the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the wider imposition of its settler colonial apartheid regime. As recognised by the International Court of Justice, ‘Israel’s settlement policy has given rise to violence by settlers and security forces against Palestinians’ (para 148, Palestine AO, 2024). Settler colonialism is an embedded and exponentially violent aspect of Israel’s occupation, with Israeli government ministers, themselves illegal settlers in the West Bank, actively encouraging violence against Palestinians. Recently, Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir (a settler), approved the issues of gun licenses to Israelis in 18 additional illegal settlements in the West Bank. Israeli settlers are not only emboldened but also armed by the Israeli government and carry out lethal attacks with impunity.

Settler violence is a core component of Israel’s annexationist plans. On 8 February 2026, the Israeli cabinet approved the implementation of wide-sweeping, illegal measures aimed at accelerating the seizure of land from Palestinians. The measures introduced by the Cabinet alter the existing Jordanian regulations (which have been in force since before the commencement of occupation in 1967), and reactivate Israel's land acquisition committee, whose purpose is to ensure the complete appropriation of Palestinian land across the West Bank including East Jerusalem. Minister of Defence Yisrael Katz and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich made their intentions to continue illegal annexation explicit in stating, “We are strengthening our grip on the territory and killing the idea of establishing an Arab terrorist state in the heart of the country.”

Read Al Haq’s full statement

Words of condemnation are not enough. Just Peace Advocates joins in the demands made by Al-Haq of all Third States to comply with their international and domestic law obligations to address the root causes and urgently.

Demand that Canada:

1. Implement legislation to end the import into their jurisdictions, and public procurement of all goods and services from settlements, and which maintains the unlawful occupation and apartheid; this includes occupied Palestine and the occupied Syrian Golan.
2. End all trade with Israel that maintains the illegal occupation and apartheid, including by terminating the Canada Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA)
3. Sanction settler organizations, businesses, and those complicit in maintaining their presence in the oPt.
4. Individually sanction all Israeli settlers, commencing with State or public officials, unlawfully present in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
5. Revoke all pension rights and State benefits to dual nationals who are illegally colonising the Palestinian territory;
6. Recognise that settler violence is part of an Israeli state policy of apartheid;
7. Investigate criminal acts of settlers, including settler Israeli Ministers, and prosecute those responsible for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of genocide; including referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC);
8. Ensure accountability domestically as required under the Rome Statute of the ICC, implementing requirements for the disclosure of service, of those who serve or who have served in the Israeli military, and the disclosure of residence of settlers, upon entry into States;
9. Establish an International, Impartial and Independent mechanism to assist in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for the most serious crimes against the Palestinian people;
10. Implement a full arms embargo on Israel.
11. Revoke Canadian charities supporting war crimes, apartheid and genocide.
12. Enforcement Section 11 of the Foreign Enlistment Act and stop illegal military recruiting, and Section 10 of the Act, investigating any returning Canadian citizen that has served in the Israeli military.