Complaints on Jewish terrorism in the West Bank surge but police investigations drop

Israeli man throws stone at Palestinians in the West Bank, September 2025

Josh Breiner reports in Haaretz on 27 October 2025:

The number of police investigations into Jewish nationalist and terrorism-related crimes in the West Bank is falling, as the number of complaints filed by Palestinians since the beginning of the year has been rising, according to police data obtained by Haaretz under a freedom of information request.

According to the data, 427 complaints about nationalist crime against Palestinians in the West Bank were filed in the first half of 2025, compared with 680 complaints filed in all of 2024.

There was also an increase in the number of Jews arrested on suspicion of nationalist offenses in 2025: 44 arrests in the first half of the year compared with 71 arrests in all of 2024.

Figures sent to The Movement for Freedom of Information show that the police’s West Bank district command opened 144 criminal investigations in January-June 2025, just a third of the complaints filed by Palestinians about Jewish nationalist crime, compared with 308 investigations opened in 2024, which made for 45 percent of the complaints filed by Palestinians.

The figures also indicate that most of the cases investigated property damage offenses, arson with nationalist motives and stone-throwing incidents.

The Police’s Judea and Samaria Central Unit, which is responsible for investigating Jewish terrorism and nationalist crime in the West Bank, has been operating without a permanent commander for almost a year.

The previous commander, Avishai Mualem, was removed from his post after an investigation was opened against him for deliberately ignoring intelligence about Jewish terrorism and far-right activists, and for failing to arrest them. He is suspected of trying to please far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to obtain a promotion.

Vehicle set on fire by settlers near Nablus, northern West Bank, October 2025

Mualem is suspected of bribery, fraud, breach of trust, and abuse of police power. When serving in his position as commander, he insisted that the number of Jewish terrorism events had dropped, even though the Shin Bet security agency’s Jewish Unit stated that it had risen. Commander Moshe Pinchi, considered an associate of Ben-Gvir and who served as his security secretary, currently commands the unit.

The Movement for Freedom of Information CEO Adv. Hiddai Negev said that only through the request were the figures on the police’s inaction in handling nationalist crime revealed. “The increase in the number of complaints filed with the police, compared with the small number of indictments, demonstrates more than anything the work of the police under Minister Ben Gvir and the unwillingness to fight Jewish terrorism,” he added. “In addition to what appears to be a professional failure in the failure to handle criminal complaints, it appears that a broader and more serious moral failure is growing in the police.”

According to Haaretz monitoring, with the start of the olive harvest season in the West Bank, there has been a noticeable increase in nationalist attacks and crimes by settlers across the territory.

Over the past year, incidents that were previously concentrated in Area C have spread into villages and towns in Area B, where civilian control rests with the Palestinians and security control is under the IDF.

On Saturday night, more than 20 masked settlers attacked, some of whom opened fire, Palestinians and human rights activists in the Bedouin town near Mukhmas, southeast of Ramallah. The night before, settlers torched cars near houses in al-Mu’ayer, outside of Ramallah.

The police said in response, “In contrast to the distortion presented, there has been a 14 percent increase in the number of investigations opened.” But the police provided no references for the number, which does not match the figures appearing in their response to the freedom of information request.

According to the police, there has been a “16 percent increase in the number of arrests and a 143 percent increase in the number of indictments filed compared with the previous year,” and the data “reflect the uncompromising policy of bringing suspects involved in extremist violent crimes to justice.”

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