Ramallah, August 3, 2026: The head of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, Minister Mu’ayyad Sha'ban, said that occupation forces and colonizers carried out a total of 2,256 assaults against Palestinian citizens, their lands, and their property during the month of July, reflecting the persistence of colonial violence as a daily, organized policy targeting the Palestinian presence and its foundations of steadfastness on this land.
Mr. Sha'ban explained, in the Commission's monthly report titled "Occupation Violations and Colonial Expansion Measures," that the occupation army carried out 1,458 assaults, while colonizers carried out 798 assaults. He noted that these figures reveal a clear integration between the tools of military force and colonizer terrorism; the army provides the environment of protection, backing, and the enabling atmosphere that allows assaults to expand and their outcomes to be turned into ongoing facts on the ground.
He indicated that the assaults were not distributed evenly, but were concentrated primarily in the governorates of Ramallah and al-Bireh, with 260 assaults; Nablus, with 247; Jenin, with 190; Bethlehem, with 185; and Hebron, with 170 assaults. These five governorates alone accounted for 1,052 of the assaults, or about 47% of the monthly total, indicating a concentration of targeting in areas witnessing accelerated colonial expansion and growing attempts to reshape control over land, roads, and resources.
Mr. Sha'ban explained that the gravity of the assaults lies not only in the multiplicity of their forms, but in the integration of their functions within a single system aimed at dismantling Palestinians' ability to remain on their land. Direct violence, the uprooting of trees and burning of fields, the denial of access to land, the seizure of property, and the demolition of homes and agricultural facilities are, he reiterated, overlapping tools that strike at personal security, sources of livelihood, the right to housing, and the ability to invest in the land. He added that this targeting is accompanied by the closure of vast Palestinian areas and their classification as military or security zones. This is in fact paradoxical and reveals the true function of the measure; landowners are barred from entering their land, while colonizers are granted the protection, roads, and resources needed to expand into it. In this way, the security pretext is transformed into a mechanism for excluding Palestinians and redistributing the right of access, use, and control in favor of the colonial project.
A Continuing Peak of Colonizer Terrorism
Mr. Sha'ban further explained that colonizer assaults, which reached 798, represent a record and unprecedented number within the dangerous escalation of colonizer terrorism, continuing the peak reached by colonizer terrorism targeting Palestinian villages and Bedouin communities. He added that these assaults were concentrated in the governorates of Nablus, with 228 assaults; Hebron, with 212; and Ramallah and al-Bireh, with 153 assaults at the hands of colonizers, adding that colonizer assaults have reached 4,286 since the beginning of 2026.
He added that colonizers caused the martyrdom of 7 citizens in July in the governorates of Nablus and Ramallah, among them the boy Fadi Hamdallah al-Na'san (17 years old) from the village of al-Mughayyir, who was martyred on July 18 succumbing to a wound he had sustained three days earlier; and Odeh Abdel Rahim Odeh Farrahneh (53 years old) and Ahmad Adel Rashid Abu Makhu (26 years old), who were martyred on July 19 during a colonizer attack on the town of Deir Jarir. On July 24, four martyrs fell during a large-scale attack on the outskirts of the village of Turmus Ayya, west of Nablus: Ibrahim Hussein Ali Ramadan (32 years old), Jawad Hussein Ali Ramadan (27 years old), Farouk Adnan Ali Ramadan (41 years old), and Imran Adnan Ali Ramadan (37 years old). This toll, particularly the fall of six martyrs in two mass attacks within less than a week, reveals a dangerous escalation in the use of firearms during colonizer attacks, and their shift from assaults on land and property to organized attacks directly targeting citizens' lives, under continued protection and impunity from accountability.
Mr. Sha'ban noted that colonizers carried out 440 acts of property destruction and land levelling, and 23 operations of confiscation and theft of Palestinian property. Their assaults also affected vast areas of Palestinian land, and colonizer assaults, assisted by the occupation army, resulted in the uprooting, destruction, and poisoning of 5,027 trees, including 3,241 olive trees, in the governorates of Hebron (1,558 trees), Jenin (1,051 trees), Qalqilya (862 trees), Tubas (600 trees), and Nablus (564 trees), among others.
Mr. Sha'ban stressed that the data reveal an organized policy aimed at producing a coercive environment that makes it increasingly difficult and untenable for Palestinians to remain on their land. He explained that colonizer terrorism operates in integration with the occupation's military and administrative tools, through repeated assaults, restricting access to land and water sources, destroying sources of livelihood, and establishing colonial outposts, all of which pushes families, particularly in Bedouin and rural communities, to leave under pressure. He added that the danger of this policy does not stop at the displacement of the population, but extends to the redistribution of control over the areas Palestinians are pushed to leave, opening them up to colonial expansion, a process that turns violence into a tool for re-engineering the geography and carrying out de facto annexation in gradual stages. He affirmed that the occupation authorities' protection of the assailants, and their refusal to enforce the law against them, reveal that displacement is not a side effect of a security breakdown, but rather the expected outcome of an institutional system that targets people, land, and resources all at once.
Attempt to Establish 29 New Colonial Outposts
Mr. Sha'ban indicated that colonizers have attempted, since the beginning of July, to establish 29 new colonial outposts, predominantly agricultural and pastoral in nature, allowing control over areas far exceeding the built-up area of the outpost itself. These attempts were distributed across nine governorates, led by Nablus with eight outposts, followed by Ramallah and al-Bireh with five, Hebron with four, Salfit and Jerusalem with three each, Jenin and Bethlehem with two each, and one each in Tubas and Qalqilya. This wide distribution shows that the phenomenon does not target a specific location, but rather seeks to redistribute control over Palestinian land, fill the gaps between colonies, and sever contiguity between Palestinian communities.
Mr. Sha'ban affirmed that the scale of these attempts, their simultaneity, and the speed of their spread do not allow them to be treated as individual or random initiatives, but rather place them within the framework of an official policy that uses colonizers as a field force to impose initial facts on the ground. The process begins with the establishment of structures, pens, and access routes under the protection of the occupation army; government bodies then intervene to provide funding, roads, water, electricity, and protection, before pushing toward recognition of the outpost, regularizing its planning status, and turning it into a permanent colony. In this way, colonizers serve as the executing force of control, while the occupation authorities handle the legal and administrative consolidation of the results, in an integrated process aimed at fragmenting Palestinian geography and expanding the scope of de facto annexation.
Seizure of 831 Dunums of Citizens' Land
Mr. Sha'ban said that in July, the occupation authorities issued a total of 33 military orders: 31 new seizure orders targeting 830.917 dunums of citizens' land, in addition to two orders amending the boundaries of previous orders, with a final area of 59.290 dunums, which is not added to the total of newly targeted areas. Tubas governorate led in targeted area with 497.862 dunums, followed by Jenin with 199.824 dunums, then Ramallah and al-Bireh with 114.350 dunums, while the orders targeted 12.652 dunums in Nablus, 5.838 dunums in Jerusalem, and 0.391 dunums in Jericho.
Mr. Sha'ban added that the orders revealed an intensive occupation orientation toward creating a broad network of security and military roads, as 28 orders were designated for building, widening, and upgrading roads, targeting about 792 dunums, which constitute more than 95% of the total seized area. This trend was particularly concentrated in Jenin governorate, through a series of orders targeting the lands of Arraba, Meithalun, Qabatiya, Musliya, and Jarba, and in Tubas governorate, through six successive orders. This pattern points to a project that goes beyond localized military needs, toward re-engineering Palestinian geography, expanding the scope of military control, and creating security corridors and belts that serve colonies and colonial outposts while severing contiguity between Palestinian villages.
Mr. Sha'ban added that on July 23 and 24, 2026, the occupation authorities issued three military orders for what it calls "security measures," targeting, according to the sum of the areas stated in them, 76.049 dunums of the lands of the villages of Salem, Burin, and Madama in Nablus governorate. The orders permit the removal of wild vegetation and the uprooting of olive trees and their transfer to alternative locations. Order No. NQ/83/26 is the largest, targeting 61.400 dunums along a route 5,567 meters long in the lands of Burin and Madama, accounting for about 81% of the total area covered by the three orders.
Demolition of 165 Facilities, Notifications to Demolish 34 More
Mr. Sha’ban indicated that during July, the occupation authorities carried out 80 demolition operations affecting 165 facilities, including 80 inhabited homes, 8 uninhabited homes, 63 agricultural facilities, and 11 sources of livelihood, concentrated in the governorates of Qalqilya (34 facilities), Hebron (26 facilities), Ramallah and al-Bireh (22), Bethlehem (16), and others. Mr. Sha'ban noted that the occupation authorities issued 34 demolition notifications for Palestinian facilities, continuing the campaign of restricting Palestinian construction and the natural growth of Palestinian villages and towns, which is these days being translated with great intensity into demolition operations. The notifications were concentrated in Bethlehem governorate (13 notifications), Hebron (10 notifications), Jenin (5), and others.
Study of 26 Master Plans for Colonies
Mr. Sha'ban added that the planning bodies of the occupying state studied, in July, a total of 26 master plans for the benefit of West Bank colonies and colonies within the boundaries of the occupation municipality in Jerusalem, comprising 14 master plans for West Bank colonies and 8 plans for colonies within the boundaries of the occupation municipality in Jerusalem.
He explained that the occupation municipality in Jerusalem deposited 4 master plans for subsequent approval and approved 4 others, while the planning bodies affiliated with the so-called “Civil Administration” studied 14 master plans for West Bank colonies, approving 7 master plans and depositing 7 others for subsequent approval, aiming to build a total of 1,128 colonial units on an area of 1,172 dunums.
Mr. Sha'ban finally noted that the maps attached to the master plans indicated approval of a plan to expand the "Mevo Dotan" colony, No. יוש/1/2/104, as the largest of the approved plans, involving the construction of 455 colonial units on an area of 539.299 dunums of land belonging to Arraba in Jenin governorate. In Hebron governorate, the planning bodies deposited a plan to formally establish the "Asa'el" colony, involving the construction of 342 units on an area of 330.492 dunums of land belonging to al-Samu', alongside a plan to expand the "Beit Hagai" colony with 225 units on an area of 189.476 dunums. These three plans alone account for 1,022 units, or about 91% of the total number of units, and 1,059.267 dunums, more than 90% of the total targeted area.