Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are facing a rapidly escalating campaign of Israeli military violence, armed settler attacks, forced displacement, land theft, and settlement expansion. It cannot be denied that this is a part of a larger system of occupation and de facto annexation that is being enabled by U.S. weapons, U.S. military funding, and congressional efforts to further deepen U.S.-Israel defense cooperation.

Just yesterday in al-Khalil (Hebron), seven-month-old Sam Fahd Abu Haikal was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces while riding in a car with his parents. 

These attacks are part of a deliberate campaign of intimidation carried out by the Israeli government and armed settlers to terrorize Palestinian communities, drive them from their land, and clear the way for accelerating illegal settlement expansion. The E1 settlement plan, along with thousands of new settlement units across the occupied West Bank, would further fragment Palestinian land, isolate East Jerusalem, and make Palestinian freedom and self-determination even harder to reach. Israeli officials have admitted it themselves, settlement expansion is being used to entrench permanent Israeli control and block a Palestinian state.

As Israel continues to wreak havoc across the region, we cannot allow new escalations or political distractions to overshadow the ongoing realities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Palestinians are still being killed, displaced, detained, and driven from their land every day.