The IDF on Monday admitted that it failed in 2025 to sufficiently reduce the volume of Jewish extremist violence against West Bank Palestinians.
In 2025, the number of “nationalistic” Jewish incidents, a term the IDF uses to refer to both violent attacks and vandalism targeting Palestinian property, spiked to 867, up from 682 incidents in 2024.
Although the IDF said the number of incidents was still lower than the 1,045 in 2023 and 922 in 2022, it was still a far cry from the 446 in 2021, 353 in 2020, and 339 in 2019.
Beyond the raw numbers, the IDF also acknowledged that the number of more serious, dangerous incidents – especially mass attacks, as opposed to an attack by one or two individuals – increased even more.
The IDF defines individual deadly Jewish attacks on Palestinians as terrorism. It does not define Jews involved in group attacks as terrorist groups, because it says they are not as organized as Palestinian terrorist groups.
IDF notes surge in Jewish extremist attacks on West Bank Palestinians
Critics say the different terminology is impacted by the right-wing politics of the existing coalition, by OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Bluth, or by other defense officials.
More recently, Bluth referred to many of the Jewish extremists as anarchists.
Breaking down who the attackers are, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) has identified 70 Jews as the worst offenders. Bluth has issued 39 restraining orders against more than half of them.
Beyond those 70, there are about 250 others who are involved in Jewish nationalist incidents, even if less extreme to some extent, the IDF said.
Roughly half of the Jewish extremists come from Judea and Samaria and another half from within the Green Line, including Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Ra’anana, it said.
Nevertheless, the majority of the Jewish extremists now spend most of their time in Judea and Samaria, even if their original homes and parents are within the Green Line.
Many of them have run away from their homes and have little regard for any authority figures, even right-wing, religious-Zionist rabbis, IDF sources said.
For example, in some cases, Jewish extremists have attacked Palestinians or even IDF commanders with arson on Saturday despite biblical religious prohibitions against using fire on Shabbat.
Some of the Jewish extremists are as young as 12, and most of them are in their teens or early 20s. One of the oldest is 26.
The worst months of the year for Jewish extremist violence were January, with 116 incidents, May and June, both with around 90, and then October and November, with 100 and 87, respectively.
An ongoing problem remains that Defense Minister Israel Katz released seven of the worst offenders from administrative detention about a year ago, and then he canceled administrative detention for Jews, IDF sources said.
More than 3,500 Palestinians are in administrative detention.
Even taking into account how much larger and more deadly Palestinian terrorism is compared with extremist Jewish violence, critics say there is no basis to eliminate administrative detention of Jews, especially since during 2024-2025, the IDF and Shin Bet repeatedly said ceasing its use would endanger national security.
While restraining orders have some impact, in practice, there are many ways around them that enable Jewish extremists to avoid law enforcement detecting their movements, IDF sources said.
Recently, electronic bracelets were placed on two Jewish extremists to track them and prevent their entering the West Bank, particularly while one of them was under house arrest.
The individual under house arrest succeeded in traveling to Eilat, against the orders of Bluth, without anyone being able to stop him in time, given that measures were more in place to prevent him from traveling to the West Bank.
In addition, many Israeli civilian courts have not fully recognized the validity of IDF military orders placed on some of the Jewish extremist civilians. This has limited the effectiveness of their enforcement and the deterrent impact on the individuals of the restraining orders or electronic bracelets.
Likewise, a new law had been passed to make it illegal for citizens to wear face masks in the West Bank. The concept was to make it easier to identify offenders or empower law enforcement to arrest them for the act of concealing their identities, even if an individual was not caught in the act of a nationalist crime against Palestinians.
But this initiative has had limited effectiveness due to a lack of enforcement in Israeli civilian courts.
There is an ongoing debate about whether the West Bank police are making a comeback in recent months to arrest and indict more Jewish violent extremists after about three years of criticism from the Shin Bet and the IDF of looking the other way due to pressure from National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Besides Jewish extremist violence, the IDF has bulldozed dozens of illegal outposts established by settlers in Judea and Samaria.
Dozens more have been officially legalized by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in his capacity of controlling that policy within the Defense Ministry.
Former defense minister Yoav Gallant pushed back on such issues, but Katz has given Smotrich a complete green light.
Those moves have led to international criticism, including from US President Donald Trump’s administration.
It was recently reported that some new outposts could disrupt any future attempt to implement Trump’s 2020 plan for establishing a Palestinian state on portions of the West Bank that are in dispute between Israel and the Palestinians.