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There is another war Israel is waging – in the West Bank.![]()
The occupied West Bank is home to more than three million Palestinians, and is currently about the size of the state of Delaware. (Please see information below regarding historical changes to the map of the West Bank). Israel has maintained an occupation of the West Bank since 1967. Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was declared in violation of international law by the International Court of Justice in July, 2024. Before and since then, the Israeli government has sponsored regular raids, home demolitions and bombings in the West Bank, creating the constant and increasing displacement of Palestinians. This amounts to ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in their ancestral land, with the stated goal of the Israeli government in 2026 to absorb the territory entirely and force Palestinians to flee and relocate.
Violence in the West Bank has sharply increased in recent years. For example, in 2025 alone Israeli military raids and demolition of entire Palestinian communities in the West Bank caused nearly 50,000 Palestinians to be violently expelled from their lands and homes.
All of this violence to individuals and the illegal taking of homes and land is being done by the Israeli government and Israeli settlers with complete impunity. There have been no consequences from the international community — primarily due to protection by the U.S. over several decades. In September 2024, for example, the United Nations overwhelmingly adopted a resolution demanding that Israel comply with international law and withdraw all its military forces from the occupied Palestinian territories, with a recorded vote of 124 nations in favor. There were 43 abstentions, and only 14 countries voting no. Our U.S. government voted against this broad international consensus.
The U.S. is a major funder of the Israeli military, and therefore our government and we as U.S. citizens are implicated in these illegal and immoral actions. The U.S. has leverage and a moral responsibility to call for the complete cessation of ongoing violent and illegal occupation.
Central Coast Advocates for Peace in the Middle East calls upon our Congressional Representative Jimmy Panetta and Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla to take all possible action to stop Israeli military strikes and the building of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The West Bank Violence Prevention Act of 2025 (H.R. 3045) requires the U.S. President to impose U.S. Sanctions against any individual or entity found to be undermining security and stability in the West Bank. We call upon our Congressional Representative Jimmy Panetta to cosponsor this legislation. And we call on him and Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla to support the “Block the Bombs Act” in the interest of ensuring that any future military aid to Israel comports with international law.
Palestinians survey a destroyed road following an Israeli raid near Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank on March 4, 2024 [Sergey Ponomarev/Getty]
In one recent case, the Israeli army destroyed the Palestinian refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem, with at least 70 percent of Jenin city’s roads bulldozed. Sadly, the above image from the West Bank looks a lot like Gaza.
Source: There is another war Israel is waging – one that is not making headlines, Aljazeera, Jan 20, 2026
BASIC BACKGROUND
The West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, covers about 2,200 square miles, making it about 15 times larger than the Gaza Strip. It is roughly the size of Delaware, and is located on the western side of the Jordan River, which is the source of its name.
The West Bank has approximately 3.3 million Palestinian inhabitants. This includes at least 870,000 registered refugees who were forcibly displaced from their homes by the newly-forming state of Israel in 1948. About one- quarter of these refugees live in 19 refugee camps established by UNRWA after the 1948 Nakba.
West Jerusalem has been under Israeli control since 1948, and has a Jewish majority. East Jerusalem, including the Old City, has been under Israeli occupation since 1967 and is mostly Palestinian. The Old City is home to some of the holiest sites in Islam, Judaism and Christianity. The area, about .4 square miles, is home to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Western Wall, St James Cathedral and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, among others.
MILITARY OCCUPATION
A Palestinian woman with a baby walks past Israeli soldiers as they storm the Old City of Hebron in the southern West Bank on 24 January during a weekly settler invasion that forces shopkeepers to close their businesses. [Mosab Shawer, ActiveStills]
Home demolitions by the Israeli military are increasingly aggressive. In 2024, Israel demolished approximately 1,700 Palestinian structures, primarily homes, displacing more than 4,200 people, according to United Nations figures. This amounted to an average of five Palestinian structures destroyed by the state of Israel per day in the West Bank.
The Israeli military assaults involve hundreds of ground soldiers advancing in bulldozers and armoured vehicles, supported by fighter jets and drones that drop bombs.
ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS IN THE WEST BANK
Israeli settlements are segregated housing units for Jewish Israelis built on Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel’s settlements are intended to cement Israeli control over the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem, and to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a “two-state solution” peace agreement.
All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, and have been repeatedly condemned as such by the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and human rights organizations.
Prior to the administration of President Donald Trump, official United States policy has never accepted Israeli settlements as legal. Despite this, the US has effectively paid for Israel’s settlement enterprise by providing billions of dollars in military and other funding annually — for decades.
As of 2024/25, there were about 350 illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land—with approximately 750,000 illegal Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.
Israeli “settlers” in the West Bank have become increasingly violent and militarized. They are often heavily armed, violent religious extremists. They build settlements surrounding Palestinian cities and towns, steal Palestinian land and water, separate Palestinian farmers from their fields, and shoot Palestinians outright.
The settler population in the West Bank is growing faster than Israel’s overall population, with about 10 percent of Israel’s 6.8 million Jewish citizens living in these areas. Settlers receive Israeli citizenship and government subsidies that lower their cost of living.
RESTRICTIONS ON PALESTINIAN MOVEMENT
Since 2002, Israel has been constructing a wall that now stretches for more than 700km (435 miles), cutting deep into Palestinian territory. Due to Israeli controls and restrictions, in order to travel in and out of the West Bank, Palestinians must gain the necessary permits and pass through Israeli military checkpoints in order to travel anywhere.
There are almost 800 Israeli military checkpoints and other obstacles, which make it difficult and dangerous for Palestinians to travel from one place to another in the West Bank (again, an area smaller than Delaware) to visit family or friends, go to school, work, or the doctor — making it impossible for Palestinians to lead normal lives.
Meanwhile, Israel has built hundreds of miles of roads and highways to provide access for of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Israelis are able to travel freely on their own “bypass roads” which have been built on Palestinian land to connect illegal Israeli settlements to major metropolitan areas inside Israel.
CHANGES TO THE SIZE AND BORDERS OF THE WEST BANK
The borders of Palestine, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza have changed through time. Before 1946, the entire area was known as Palestine. In 1947, the United Nations proposed partition of Palestine to create the state of Israel. However, by 1949, the Israeli military had gained a larger proportion of historical Palestine. By 2012 (the last map) the West Bank was literally disappearing, as the Israeli government and Israeli settlers took over additional land. This literal diminishment of the land of the West Bank has continued and worsened in 2026.
Map source: Unraveling the Borders of Israel and Palestine Through Time
Major Sources:
“Israel’s borders explained in maps,” BBC, Oct 11, 2023.
“Ten Maps to Understand the Occupied West Bank,” Aljazeera, Sep 16, 2024.
“Explainer: Israel’s Settlement Enterprise (West Bank & East Jerusalem)” Institute for Middle East Understanding, June 13, 2024.
Israel’s Settlements Have No Legal Validity, Constitute Flagrant Violation of International Law, Security Council Reaffirms, United Nations Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, Dec 23, 2016.
Movement and Access in the West Bank, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) August 2023.