B’Tselem: Israel has killed over 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 2023

[B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupies Territories, issued the following press release on Nov. 23, 2025.]

On Friday (November 21), Israeli forces killed Amro al-Marbooh, 18, and Sami al-Mashaikh, 16 , in Kafr ‘Aqab, East Jerusalem and also Yunis Ashtayeh, 24, from the village of Tel near Nablus. This brings to 1,004 the number of Palestinians killed by Israel in the West Bank since October 2023, including 217 minors. At least 21 of the killings were perpetrated by settlers.

B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak: “We are witnessing the total abandonment of Palestinian lives. Israel has already shown it is capable of far greater violence, as we are seeing in the Gaza Strip. The situation in the West Bank is deteriorating by the day and will only worsen, because there is no internal or external mechanism to restrain Israel or stop its ongoing policy of ethnic cleansing. The international community must put an end to Israel’s impunity and hold those responsible for crimes against the Palestinian people to account.”

Since October 2023, alongside the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the Israeli military has been enforcing an increasingly permissive and reckless open-fire policy in the West Bank, including the use of airstrikes in populated areas. The military has also armed and mobilized thousands of settlers into regional defense battalions and rapid-response teams within settlements. Under this blanket impunity, armed settlers attack Palestinians on a daily basis, burning homes, farmland and crops, looting property and killing residents. Although dozens of such attacks occur every day, and many are captured on video and well documented, Israeli law-enforcement authorities rarely open investigations. In the 21 cases where settlers have killed Palestinians, not a single perpetrator has been convicted.