Sexual violence in the West Bank emerges as tool to intimidate Palestinians
Israeli soldiers stand in front of a military checkpoint set up at one of the entrances to the Jabal Johar area on 21 January 2026 in Hebron
Fayha Shalash reports in Al Jazeera on 22 April 2026:
Qusay Abu al-Kabash, 29, continues to suffer physically and psychologically from a sexual assault allegedly perpetrated by a group of settlers who attacked the Bedouin community where he lives in the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley.
On March 13, in the middle of the night, more than 70 settlers attacked Khirbet Hamsa al-Fawqa. Qusay told Al Jazeera that the settlers divided themselves into groups to attack the Palestinian tents. Five of the settlers attacked his tent – where he had been asleep – and began beating him severely with their hands and sticks. They also assaulted two foreign female activists who were sleeping in the same tent.
“The settlers then forcibly removed my pants while tying my hands and feet, binding my body with my belt, and stripping me of my underwear,” Qusay said. He recounted that the settlers then beat his genitals, tied his limbs and genitals with plastic zip ties, and humiliated him, before threatening to repeat the assault if he did not leave the area.
The assault on Qusay and all the residents of the area lasted for approximately 45 minutes. During that time, many residents, including children, reported being beaten, and said they were threatened with death if they didn’t leave immediately. The settlers also stole hundreds of livestock.
At the end of the assault, Qusay said that the settlers dragged him along the ground without his underwear and severely beat him all over his body, including his eye, which later became swollen.
“The psychological effects of the sexual assault on me far outweighed the physical impact,” Qusay said. “After the assault, I felt extremely angry and irritable, and I preferred to sit alone, distressed.”
Forced from their homes
Sexual violence and deliberate harassment have become increasingly common in the occupied West Bank, perpetrated by Israeli soldiers and settlers. According to observers, these acts are no longer isolated incidents but rather systematic tools used by Israel to pressure Palestinians and force them to leave their homes.
On April 20, the West Bank Protection Consortium – led by the Norwegian Refugee Council and funded by the European Union and several European states – published a report titled, Sexual Violence and Forcible Transfer in the West Bank, documenting cases of conflict-related sexual violence over a period of nearly three years in the Palestinian territory.
The report documented forced nudity, invasive body searches, threats of rape, and sexual harassment. The report concluded that more than 70 percent of the displaced families interviewed said threats against women and children, particularly sexual violence, were a decisive factor in leaving their homes.
But the problem could be even larger in scale than the report describes, due to the difficulty of documentation, fear, and social stigma associated with sexual violence.