Israeli settler violence and harassment in the occupied West Bank have displaced nearly 700 Palestinians in January, the highest number since Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza erupted in October 2023, according to the United Nations.

At least 694 Palestinians were forcefully driven from their homes last month, according to a statement by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Thursday.

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The office also said in late January that settler violence has become a key driver of forced displacement in the occupied West Bank.

January’s displacement numbers were particularly high in part due to the displacement of an entire herding community in the Jordan Valley, Ras Ein al-Auja, whose 130 families left after months of sustained harassment.

“[The displacements] include 600 displaced from Ras Ein al-Auja community, marking the highest single-community displacement due to settler attacks and access restrictions over the past three years,” the statement said.

It also said that January 2026 marks the second-highest single‑month displacement since the October 2023 peak at 1,032.

Settlers in the West Bank, which Israel has illegally occupied since 1967, use herding to establish a presence on agricultural land used by Palestinian communities and gradually deny them access to these areas, according to a 2025 report by Israeli NGO Peace Now.

The settlers rampage through Palestinian-owned land, destroying property and olive groves, injuring and killing civilians with impunity, often with the Israeli military’s backing.

‘No pressure on Israel’

To force Palestinians out, settlers resort to harassment, intimidation and violence, “with the backing of the Israeli government and military”, Peace Now said.

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“No one is putting the pressure on Israel or on the Israeli authorities to stop this and so the settlers feel it, they feel the complete impunity that they’re just free to continue to do this,” said Allegra Pacheco, director of the West Bank Protection Consortium, a group of NGOs working to support Palestinian communities against displacement.

She pointed to a lack of attention on the West Bank as another driving factor.

“All eyes are focused on Gaza when it comes to Palestine, while we have an ongoing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and nobody’s paying attention,” she told the AFP news agency.

Palestinians in the West Bank are also displaced when Israel’s military destroys structures and dwellings it says are built without permits or in prolonged Israeli raids in towns.

In January, 182 other Palestinians were displaced due to home demolitions, according to OCHA.

Excluding occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to more than 500,000 Israelis living in settlements and outposts considered illegal under international law.

About three million Palestinians live in the occupied West Bank.