MPs visiting the West Bank raise concerns about settler violence targeting Palestinians

Two MPs currently visiting the West Bank say they're concerned about Israeli settler violence in the territory.

Liberal MPs Salma Zahid and Shafqat Ali are touring the West Bank and Jordan with New Democrat MPs Heather McPherson, Matthew Green and Lindsay Mathyssen. The week-long trip is sponsored by Canadian Muslim Vote, a registered non-profit charity.

Ali said the MPs have heard from victims of settler violence since arriving in East Jerusalem earlier this week — including Palestinians who say they've been shot or their homes have been burned.

"These events are happening and I hear this on the ground from many people," Ali told CBC News on Wednesday.

"I think that needs to be looked at by [the] Israeli government so the violence would not escalate further."

The pace of both new Israeli settlement-building and forced removals of Palestinians in the West Bank has accelerated rapidly since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in 2022. Settlers say they are reclaiming land to which Israel has biblical and historical ties.

Canada, along with much of the international community, sees Israeli settlements in the West Bank, built on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as illegal and inflammatory.

Zahid said she noticed the level of settlement expansion as she and her fellow MPs arrived in the West Bank. She described the settlements as "gated communities."

"It gives me an idea what the Palestinian families have to go [through] in their day-to-day life … I could see the challenges they are facing every day," she told CBC News.

Zahid said she heard from Palestinian doctors who described losing patients due to complications at checkpoints.

"Patients in critical care have to be transported from one ambulance to the other ambulance because the ambulance cannot enter certain areas," she said.

The West Bank has not seen the same volume of media coverage as Gaza, the main theater of conflict since Hamas's October 7 attacks. Since then, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The West Bank is administered by the Palestinian Authority, a political entity separate from Hamas which Canada lists as a terrorist organization. The Palestinian authority is recognized by the United Nations as the only representative Palestinian governing body.

In December, the Canadian government joined 13 other countries, including the United Kingdom, France and the European Union, in calling on Israel to do more to stop "extremist settler violence" against Palestinians.