UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The situation in the West Bank must be treated as an emergency requiring urgent action, UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov said Tuesday.
"The concern is not only the continued expansion of (Israeli) settlements, but the speed and systematic manner in which new facts are being created on the ground," he warned in a briefing to the Security Council.
New outposts are established, often with state support, and can be retroactively authorized or incorporated into the wider settlement system. From these outposts, settler violence and intimidation have driven the displacement of Palestinian communities, said Alakbarov.
The spread of agricultural and grazing outposts is deeply troubling as well. Requiring only a few settlers, they enable control over vast areas of land. Israeli monitoring organizations report that agricultural and pastoral outposts now exercise effective control over close to 20 percent of the West Bank, he said.
"We must be clear-eyed about what is taking place. These are interconnected steps, not isolated developments. They are reshaping the West Bank, weakening Palestinian governance and advancing de-facto annexation," said the envoy.
The stakes are high. If the West Bank continues to unravel, it will further erode the prospects for ending the Israeli occupation and realizing a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace based on the two-state solution, he warned.
"We must act now, collectively and determinedly, to ensure concrete steps are taken towards that objective. The UN remains committed to supporting all efforts in support of a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians based on 1967 lines, with Jerusalem as capital of both States, living side by side in peace and security," he said.
Alakbarov warned that the West Bank is at the breaking point, noting that the situation has not been a sudden deterioration but the result of decades 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.
As of Monday, 76 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in 2026, including 18 children, by Israeli forces or settlers. Three Israelis, including one civilian and two members of Israeli security forces, were killed in confrontations with Palestinians in the West Bank, the envoy noted.
Some 127 Palestinian communities have experienced full or partial displacement since January 2023, including 47 that have been entirely displaced, affecting more than 6,390 Palestinians. In 2026 alone, about 3,800 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, have been displaced due to settler violence, demolitions and evictions, he said.
Settler violence has reached unprecedented levels. So far this year, the UN has documented more than 1,430 incidents involving Israeli settlers that resulted in casualties, property damage or both, affecting approximately 260 Palestinian communities. Many incidents occurred in the presence of Israeli forces, said Alakbarov.
The pattern is clear. Palestinian populations are increasingly being forcibly displaced from villages across the West Bank before settlers seize the vacated land. Settler attacks, which were previously concentrated in Area C -- which is under full Israeli control -- are increasingly reported in Area B -- which is under Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security control -- and even Area A -- which is under full Palestinian control, he said.
Alongside the mounting violence, Israel is significantly accelerating its settlement activities while consolidating its control across the occupied West Bank. Since the beginning of the year, Israeli planning authorities advanced or approved approximately 12,360 housing units in the occupied West Bank -- 7,200 housing units in Area C and 5,160 housing units in East Jerusalem, he said. ■
