Why rights groups say so many Palestinians in the West Bank are being attacked with impunity

For years, even decades, human rights groups that monitor the occupied West Bank have implored Israel's allies to take steps to punish Jewish settlers and members of Israel's military who attack Palestinians and seem to carry out their actions with impunity.  

And so when word came over the weekend that Israel's closest ally, the United States, reportedly plans to hold members of an Israeli military battalion composed of ultra-orthodox and religious nationalist members accountable, they saw it as progress.

Earlier, the United States and Europe had placed economic and travel sanctions on a few key settlers believed to be responsible for instigating attacks, but implementing penalties and putting restrictions on a branch of the Israel Defence Forces is unprecedented. 

Israel's government was indignant and rejected the suggestion that the military unit should be singled out.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said imposing sanctions on the Netzah Yehuda battalion while the war against Hamas still rages and the unit is fighting in Gaza "casts a heavy shadow" on other IDF units.

And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested the potential U.S. measure was "the peak of absurdity and a moral low," as he vowed to fight it.

A series of U.S. statutes, known as the Leahy Laws, prohibit U.S. military assistance from being transferred to organizations that the U.S. State Department determines have committed human rights abuses.

And by many accounts, the abuses attributed to Netzah Yehuda during its decades-long time as enforcers of Israel's rules in the West Bank are about as bad as they get. 

In one incident in 2022, members of the unit dragged a 78-year-old American Palestinian man, Omar Assad, from his car after being stopped at a checkpoint. He was bound, gagged, blindfolded and beaten. An autopsy concluded he died of a heart attack from the stress of the encounter.

While the U.S. move is linked to events that happened before Oct. 7, the potential sanctions come at a time when violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has reached new levels in the aftermath of Hamas's attacks on southern Israel.

There have been violent rampages against Palestinian homes, businesses and property almost every day of late, in many cases with Israeli soldiers present, but not intervening to stop the rampages, say Palestinians who witnessed them.

Palestinian officials say more than 486 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, many in military raids and others from attacks by settlers. 

The United Nations has recorded 774 attacks by settlers on Palestinians in the past six months, with Israeli soldiers present in nearly half the attacks. Human Rights Watch says the violence has forced Palestinians to flee at least seven communities permanently. 

In its most recent report encapsulating the whole of the year — both before and after Oct. 7 — the UN said 2023 was the worst year for settler attacks on Palestinians in any year since tracking started in 2006.