<\/p>\n
11 August 2026<\/p>\n
Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Security Council 10207th Meeting (AM) <\/strong>SC\/16430<\/strong><\/p>\n The West Bank is at a breaking point, with settler violence reaching unprecedented levels, the Security Council heard today.<\/p>\n Ramiz Alakbarov, the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, told the 15-member Council that the situation in the West Bank is the result of \u201cdecades of unresolved conflict that has deepened the unlawful Israeli occupation, driven the Palestinian Authority to the brink of collapse and undermined the prospects for an independent, viable and sovereign Palestinian State\u201d.<\/p>\n Mr. Alakbarov echoed many Council speakers in stressing the need to implement Council resolution 2803 (2025)<\/a>, which endorses the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, under which a limited ceasefire<\/a> was established in the enclave, as well as the New York Declaration<\/a>, a landmark agreement aimed at advancing an independent State of Palestine.<\/p>\n Since the start of the year, he said, Israeli authorities have approved or advanced about 12,360 housing units in the occupied West Bank and significant resources are being allocated to settlement expansion, including $431 million to support 34 new settlements.<\/p>\n So far in 2026, 76 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers, he said, including 18 children. Three Israelis were killed in confrontations with Palestinians. Some 3,800 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, were displaced due to settler violence, demolitions and evictions. \u201cMany incidents occurred in the presence of Israeli forces,\u201d he emphasized.<\/p>\n \u201cAll perpetrators of such crimes must be brought to justice,\u201d he stressed, underscoring that from 5 to 7 August, Israeli forces conducted a large-scale operation in Qalandia refugee camp, resulting in dozens of Palestinians injured and extensive property damage. He also expressed concern that on 27 July, Israeli forces entered the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA) Kalandia Training Centre without authorization.<\/p>\n Tensions rose in East Jerusalem on 23 July, during Tisha B’Av, when organized Israeli visits to Haram al-Sharif, including by an Israeli minister, renewed concerns over the status quo at the holy sites. Compounding these pressures, Israel is withholding $6 billion in clearance revenues, preventing the Palestinian Authority from paying salaries and delivering basic services.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fundamental spaces of childhood \u2014 the home, the school and the community \u2014 are becoming increasingly unsafe,\u201d Hannan Sulieman, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵICEF), told the Council. Asking members to imagine raising children in Gaza and the West Bank, she said the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ verified 174 Palestinian children killed in the West Bank between January 2024 and July 2026.<\/p>\n Boys comprise most of those children killed and injured, she said. Some had been shot \u2014 even while running away \u2014 and parents are increasingly withdrawing their children from school because they cannot keep them safe.<\/p>\n \u201cExposing a child to violence, raids and intimidation takes a profound psychological toll,\u201d she added, spotlighting the plight of the 800,000 children in the West Bank, and more specifically, at least 355 Palestinian children currently held in detention facing harsh conditions, mistreatment and inadequate nutrition.<\/p>\n She emphasized that Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵICEF and its partners remain on the ground to support displaced families and those in need of emergency food assistance, cash aid, medical support, safe water and psychosocial services. \u201cBut humanitarian assistance can only mitigate the consequences; it cannot remove the causes.\u201d<\/p>\n Against that backdrop, she urged the Council to protect children. The administrative detention of children must end, she said, calling for conditions of detained Palestinian children to be brought into line with international standards. Member States should also use their influence to prevent further displacement in the West Bank \u201cand signal zero tolerance for violence against children and communities\u201d, she stressed.<\/p>\n \u201cRecent attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages and communities, in some cases alongside Israel Defense Force personnel, are appalling,\u201d said the United Kingdom\u2019s speaker, expressing alarm that Israel had approved 104 settlements in four years, an increase of 80 per cent. Latvia\u2019s delegate, calling the latest developments \u201calarming\u201d and \u201cappalling\u201d, urged Israel to end its settlement policy and ensure accountability for attacks on civilians.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot ignore what is happening,\u201d said France\u2019s delegate, adding that Israeli settlement activity is increasing in \u201cabsolute disregard\u201d of international law. France and its European Union partners, he said, have enacted sanctions against the entities and individuals responsible. \u201cWe will take additional measures \u2014 including sanctions and trade measures \u2014 to address the situation,\u201d he added. In that vein, Denmark\u2019s delegate, Council President for August, in her national capacity, said: \u201cWe urge businesses to be aware of the potential legal, financial and reputational risks associated with bidding for these contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n Also expressing concern over rising settler violence targeting Palestinian civilians \u2014 \u201cincluding Christian communities\u201d \u2014 the representative of Greece added that the withholding of Palestinian tax revenues is placing the Palestinian Authority under \u201cunsustainable\u201d financial strain. Pakistan\u2019s representative pointed to a \u201cclear pattern of coordinated, illegal measures designed to entrench the occupation, alter the demographic and territorial realities on the ground and undermine the prospects of a Palestinian State\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe West Bank is approaching a point of no return,\u201d warned the representative of the Russian Federation, adding that \u201cpractical implementation of the American peace plan for Gaza has essentially stalled\u201d. Spotlighting Israel\u2019s recent, public rejection of this road map, he underscored that the success of any Middle East peace initiative \u201cwill be measured by the achievement of its chief goal \u2014 the creation of a single, independent and contiguous State of Palestine\u201d.<\/p>\n The representative of the United States, urging the Council to show strong support for the Board of Peace and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, said that both are working to advance the peace plan endorsed by resolution 2803 (2025). Welcoming progress that these two bodies have achieved thus far, she spotlighted the \u201cmilestone\u201d reached in July when Hamas \u201cfinally, and for the first time, committed to an actionable plan for its disarmament\u201d.<\/p>\n Bahrain\u2019s representative highlighted her country\u2019s steadfast efforts to bring peace and stability back to the Gaza Strip, including under the auspices of the Board of Peace. However, citing the seizure of land and the demolition of homes and schools in the West Bank, she agreed that such actions are only threatening prospects for peace. Somalia\u2019s delegate said that increasing violence and terrorism by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians is “undermining the very foundations of Palestinian life in the West Bank.”<\/p>\n Echoing other speakers, representatives from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia expressed concern over the effects of violence on children, with the latter emphasizing the need to balance Israeli security with Palestinian civilians’ right to safety and freedom from suffering.<\/p>\n \u201cSchools must be free from fear and intimidation,\u201d stressed Panama\u2019s delegate. The representative of China described it as \u201cshocking\u201d that the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA training centre had been forcibly stormed on two occasions. \u201cThe lives of the Palestinian people are just as precious as those of all other people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to end this evil system imposed on us,\u201d said Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine. \u201cThrough the theft of our financial resources to the attack against our institutions, Israel is seeking the collapse of the Palestinian Authority in the hope that this would precipitate the transfer of Palestinians outside of Palestine,\u201d he emphasized. Throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, annexation is under way. Palestinians are now confined to 30 per cent of the Gaza Strip, 40 per cent of the West Bank and 13 per cent of East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n Turning to the Comprehensive Peace Plan and the New York Declaration, he said the two pacts rely on \u201cno occupation, no annexation, no displacement\u201d, but Israel is \u201cfully committed to pursuing all three at all costs\u201d. The future of the region cannot be decided by \u201ccolonial appetite or hegemonic aspirations\u201d. He called on the international community to set a path for Palestinian freedom, self-determination and independent statehood.<\/p>\n In turn, Israel\u2019s representative said that \u201cwhile Israeli extremist attacks are declining, Palestinian terrorist attacks are rising, making up the majority of attacks in Judea and Samaria\u201d. The Council is \u201cfocusing on one side of the violence while ignoring the other\u201d. He detailed Israel\u2019s efforts to strengthen enforcement against Jewish extremism and said its leaders have made extremist violence \u201ca priority for our Government\u201d.<\/p>\n When speaker after speaker refers to \u201csettler violence\u201d, it is \u201can insult to thousands of years of continuous Jewish history in the land of Israel\u201d, he said. \u201cJews have never been \u2014 and will never be \u2014 \u2018settlers\u2019 in Judea and Samaria.\u201d Those committing violence are a \u201ctiny fraction\u201d of the people living there. When speakers use the term \u201csettler violence\u201d, it \u201cdenies our connection to the land of Israel, distracts from constant terrorist attacks against Israelis and collectively labels entire innocent communities for the crimes of the marginal extremist minority\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 11 August 2026 Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Security Council 10207th Meeting (AM) SC\/16430 The West Bank is at a breaking point, with settler violence reaching unprecedented levels, the Security Council heard today. Ramiz Alakbarov, the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, told the 15-member Council that the situation in the West Bank is […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[6999],"document-source":[1362],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[2265,2033,7022,2005,1741,1805,1745,6866,6251],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-319779","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-meeting-coverage","document-source-security-council","document-subject-ceasefire","document-subject-children","document-subject-evictions","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-human-rights-and-international-humanitarian-law","document-subject-occupation","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","document-subject-settler-violence","document-subject-west-bank","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/319779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/319779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":319804,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/319779\/revisions\/319804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=319779"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=319779"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=319779"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=319779"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=319779"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=319779"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=319779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}West Bank Palestinians Uprooted by Settler Violence, Demolitions, Evictions<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Childhood Unsafe, Especially for Boys<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Illegal Measures Entrench Occupation, Speakers Stress<\/strong><\/h3>\n
United States Hails Gaza Progress, as Russian Federation Points to \u2018Stalled\u2019 Ceasefire<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Annexation Under Way, State of Palestine Warns, Demands Path to Freedom<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Israel, Denouncing Council Bias, Cites Enforcement against Jewish Extremism<\/strong><\/h3>\n