The Uninterrupted Kick: Settler Violence and Military Complicity in the West Bank 

This incident, in which an Israeli settler was filmed kicking a detained Palestinian while IDF soldiers—including members of a unit composed of local settlers—stood by without intervention, is not an isolated event but a stark symbol of a systemic crisis in the West Bank characterized by escalating settler violence, military complicity, and a near-total lack of accountability, all of which occur within a political ecosystem that enables such acts and perpetuates a cycle of impunity and chronic insecurity for Palestinian communities.

The Uninterrupted Kick: Settler Violence and Military Complicity in the West Bank 

The Uninterrupted Kick: How an Act of Brutality Symbolizes Israel’s West Bank Crisis 

The Incident That Echoed Beyond Shuqba 

In late November 2025, near the West Bank village of Shuqba, a scene unfolded that encapsulates the daily reality of military occupation: an Israeli settler approaches a Palestinian man who has been pinned to the ground by Israeli soldiers, draws back his foot, and delivers a sharp kick to the defenseless figure. The most telling detail? The Israeli soldiers on scene, including members of an IDF West Bank unit composed of local settlers, watch without intervention. This single gesture of brutality, preserved in digital video and shared across social media platforms, has become a symbolic representation of a broader system of violence and accountability failure in the occupied territories . 

While the Israeli military issued the familiar refrain that the troops’ conduct was “under review,” human rights organizations and observers recognize this pattern all too well. Such incidents represent what one UN official describes as “total impunity” for acts of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank . This article examines the entrenched systems that enable such violence, the political structures that perpetuate it, and the human stories behind the statistics that have drawn international concern. 

A Pattern of Escalating Violence: The Broader Context 

Soaring Numbers of Settler Attacks 

The Shuqba incident represents neither anomaly nor exception. According to United Nations data, October 2025 saw more than 260 settler attacks against Palestinians—the highest monthly tally since the UN began monitoring such violence in 2006 . These attacks have created an environment where nearly 700 Palestinians have been injured by settlers directly in 2025 alone, a figure that has roughly doubled from the previous year . 

The nature of these attacks reveals a coordinated campaign rather than random acts of aggression. The UN has documented mobs of masked settlers carrying out arson attacks on Palestinian dairy factories, torching delivery trucks and homes, and systematically targeting agricultural livelihoods . In Beit Lid, dozens of masked settlers recently ransacked a light industrial park and torched ten vehicles, injuring four Palestinians before even turning on the Israeli soldiers who arrived to restore order . 

The Economic Dimension: Targeting Livelihoods 

The violence has taken a deliberate economic toll, particularly targeting the olive harvest season that represents a crucial income source for approximately 110,000 West Bank farmers with another 50,000 people depending on the olive industry for their livelihood . Records kept by the Palestinian Farmers’ Union show incidents of violence against members have quadrupled from pre-war levels, with the revenue from olives now a fraction of the $130 million it generated annually before the war . 

Aviv Tatarsky, an Israeli activist who has worked in the West Bank for decades, summarizes the situation: “It’s really bad at the moment. The settlers are operating with total impunity” . This assessment is echoed at the highest levels of international human rights monitoring, with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights noting “abhorrent” patterns of violence alongside increased home demolitions, property seizures, and movement restrictions . 

Military Complicity: When Soldiers Watch 

The Settler-Soldier Dynamic 

The presence of IDF soldiers who are themselves settlers creates a complex dynamic that undermines the possibility of impartial law enforcement. The UN has documented a surge in killings of Palestinians by both Israeli security forces and settlers, with at least 1,017 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since October 2023—including 221 children . Recent data indicates this number has since risen to at least 1,030 . 

The Shuqba incident exemplifies what human rights organizations describe as institutional tolerance for violence against Palestinians. The soldiers’ failure to intervene against the settler’s kick reflects a broader pattern of non-interference that has enabled the escalation of violence. This complicity extends beyond passive observation to active participation in many documented cases. 

Testimonies from Within 

Disturbing insights into this culture of complicity have emerged from an unexpected source: Israeli soldiers themselves. In the documentary “Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War,” IDF veterans provide firsthand accounts of practices they describe as systematic war crimes . 

One soldier, using the alias “Yaakov,” describes how his unit used Palestinian teenagers as human shields, sending them into Gaza’s tunnels as scouts despite unit objections citing international law. Yaakov insists the IDF has a policy sanctioning this practice called “Mosquito Protocol,” though the military denies this . Another soldier recounts how his unit once reported killing 112 people over their deployment, with only one even suspected of holding a weapon . 

Perhaps most telling is the response to internal accountability attempts. The documentary features a tank commander who describes how a superior shelled a humanitarian aid building despite being warned it was off-limits, then fabricated an excuse: “I had an anti-tank weapon pointed at me” . These testimonies suggest a cultural tolerance for excessive violence that extends from leadership downward. 

The Accountability Crisis: When Reviews Rarely Lead to Justice 

The Investigation Facade 

The Israeli military’s promise that the Shuqba incident is “under review” follows a familiar pattern that rarely leads to meaningful accountability. According to data compiled by the UK-based monitor Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), out of 52 reported cases of alleged Israeli military violations between October 2023 and June 2025—incidents linked to the deaths of over 1,300 Palestinians and nearly 1,900 injuries—only six resulted in any disciplinary action . 

This means approximately 88% of investigated cases concluded without consequences for those involved . The AOAV report notes that seven investigations were closed without finding wrongdoing, while 39 remain open or without public conclusion—a pattern the organization characterizes as “systemic failure” to hold perpetrators accountable . 

The Sde Teiman Case: A Microcosm of the Crisis 

The Sde Teiman detention facility case exemplifies this accountability crisis. The scandal emerged after surveillance video leaked in August 2024 showed reserve soldiers at the Sde Teiman military base taking aside a Palestinian detainee, surrounding him with riot shields to block visibility, and allegedly beating and stabbing him in the rectum with a sharp object . 

The fallout has been revealing: the soldiers were charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm, but the military’s former top lawyer, Maj Gen Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, faced arrest for leaking the video—not the perpetrators for the abuse itself . In her resignation letter, Tomer-Yerushalmi stated she had approved releasing the material “in an attempt to counter false propaganda against the army’s law enforcement authorities” . 

The political response has been equally telling. Defense Minister Israel Katz declared that “anyone who spreads blood libels against IDF troops is unfit to wear the army’s uniform,” while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incident as “perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced since its establishment” . Their focus on the public relations damage rather than the abuse itself speaks volumes about the priority of accountability versus image protection. 

The Human Impact: Beyond the Statistics 

Palestinian Testimonies of Abuse 

Behind the statistics lie profound human stories. Take “Nihad,” a 50-year-old Palestinian detainee who recently described his experience in Israeli detention, where he says soldiers ordered a police dog to sexually assault him during a raid inside Israel’s Ofer Prison . He describes this as “the most painful moments of my life,” leaving deep physical wounds and long-lasting psychological trauma . 

Nihad, who has been arrested five times since the 1990s, says his most recent detention was “the harshest by far,” describing an environment where “every moment feels like a military interrogation, … killing is permissible, and nothing protects you” . He asserts that such abuse is systemic rather than isolated, stating: “This wasn’t an individual incident—it is part of the arrest procedures” . 

Israeli lawyer Ben Marmareli, who represents Palestinian detainees, corroborates these accounts, noting that abuse worsened after National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir took office in late 2022 . He describes clients who remain extremely thin due to inadequate food, with one “looking like a Holocaust skeleton” during a visit . 

The Psychological Toll on Communities 

The violence extends beyond direct physical harm to profound psychological trauma within Palestinian communities. In Beit Lid, after settlers ransacked his community, Mahmoud Edeis expressed a simple but increasingly elusive desire: “to feel that my children are safe, that when I go to sleep I can say: ‘OK, there’s nothing [to worry about]'” . 

He continues: “But at any moment something could happen … This can’t go on. It can’t be that we keep living our whole lives in a state of fear and danger” . This sentiment captures the chronic insecurity that has become endemic in many West Bank communities, where the constant threat of violence shapes daily decisions about where to travel, when to harvest, and whether to let children play outdoors. 

Systemic Roots: Political Support and Ideological Foundations 

Governmental and Institutional Backing 

This violence flourishes within a political ecosystem that provides varying degrees of endorsement. Many ministers in Israel’s most rightwing government in history maintain close ideological and organizational ties with settler activists, including some of the most extreme elements . Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, has publicly called for Israel to annex “roughly 82% of the West Bank” . 

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned this consolidation, reiterating that “the Israeli Government’s assertion of sovereignty over the occupied West Bank and its annexation of parts of it are in breach of international law, as the International Court of Justice has confirmed” . The Commissioner further emphasized that these actions “violate the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination” . 

The International Law Perspective 

From the standpoint of international law, the situation represents grave violations. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has stated unequivocally that “permanently displacing the Palestinian population within occupied territory amounts to unlawful transfer, which is a war crime,” adding that “the transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies also amounts to a war crime” . 

Despite occasional condemnation of settler violence by top Israeli officials—such as Prime Minister Netanyahu blaming a “minority” that “does not represent the large settler public”—the practical reality on the ground continues virtually unabated . Palestinians and human rights campaigners note that Israeli authorities make little effort to control settlers, with only one in twenty investigations into settler violence ending with charges and even fewer leading to convictions . 

Conclusion: Beyond the Single Kick 

The kick delivered in Shuqba represents more than an isolated act of cruelty—it embodies an entrenched system of violence, impunity, and occupation that has escalated dramatically in recent years. From the soldiers who watch without intervening to the political structures that enable such violence, the incident reflects a reality where accountability remains elusive and international law is systematically undermined. 

As the UN Human Rights Office continues to document “apparent summary executions” and settler violence that has reached unprecedented levels, the need for independent investigation and international attention has never been more urgent . The stories emerging from the West Bank—from the farmer who cannot safely harvest his olives to the detainee subjected to systematic abuse—paint a comprehensive picture of a population living under relentless pressure. 

The “uninterrupted kick” ultimately symbolizes a crisis of impunity that extends from the fields of Shuqba to the highest levels of Israeli politics and military command. Until this system of accountability-free violence is addressed, such incidents will continue to define the daily reality of occupation for millions of Palestinians, with each act of unchecked violence reinforcing a cycle that threatens any possibility of future coexistence, much less peace.