There are increasing reports of violence and intimidation by Israeli settlers in occupied Palestinian territory.

Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay has been inside the West Bank, where he’s found settlers feeling emboldened since the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.

With the government largely supporting them, they act with impunity and are in many ways enabled by Israel security forces.

But what are the settlements, and why are they controversial?

What are settlements?

A settlement is an Israeli-built village, town, or city in occupied Palestinian territory – either in the West Bank or East Jerusalem.

The largest, Modi’in Illit, is thought to house around 82,000 settlers, according to Peace Now.

There is also a growing movement of Israelis wanting to build settlements in Gaza.

Settlements are illegal under international law and have been condemned by the UN. They are, however, authorised by the Israeli government.

As well as official, government-approved settlements, there are also Israeli outposts.

These are established without government approval and are considered illegal by Israeli authorities. But reports suggest the government often turns a blind eye to their creation.

Israel began building settlements shortly after the 1967 Six-Day War.

The Etzion Bloc in Hebron, which was established that year, now houses around 40,000 people.

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What is the two-state solution?

According to the Israel Policy Forum, the settlement programme is intended to protect Israel’s security, with settlers acting as the first line of defence “against an invasion”.

The Israeli public appears divided on the effectiveness of the settlements, however.

A 2024 Pew Research Centre poll found that 40% of Israelis believe settlements help Israeli security, 35% say they hurt it, and 21% think they make no difference.

Why are they controversial?

Israeli settlements are built on land that is internationally recognised as Palestinian territory.

Sky News has spoken to multiple Palestinians who say they were forced out of their homes by Israeli settlers, despite having lived there for generations.

“They gradually invade the community and expand. The goal is to terrorise people, to make them flee,” Rachel Abramovitz, a member of the group Looking The Occupation In The Eye, told Sky News in May.

Settlers who have spoken to Sky News say they have a holy right to occupy the land.

American-born Israeli settler Daniel Winston told Sky’s chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay: “God’s real, and he wrote the Bible, and the Bible says, ‘I made this land, and I want you to be here’.”

Settlers make up around 5% of Israel’s population and 15% of the West Bank’s population, according to data from Peace Now.

How have things escalated since 7 October 2023?

Since the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023 and Israel’s subsequent military bombardment of Gaza, more than 100 Israeli outposts have been established, according to Peace Now.

In May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government approved 22 new settlements, including the legalisation of outposts that had previously been built without authorisation.

Settler violence against Palestinians has also increased, according to the UN, with an average of 118 incidents each month – up from 108 in 2023, which was already a record year.

The UK government has sanctioned two members of Mr Netanyahu’s cabinet, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for “repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian civilians” – notably in the West Bank.

The UN’s latest report on Israeli settlements notes that in October 2024, there were 162 settler attacks on Palestinian olive harvesters, many of them in the presence of IDF soldiers.

Of the 174 settler violence incidents studied by the UN, 109 were not reported to Israeli authorities.

Most Palestinian victims said they didn’t report the attacks due to a lack of trust in the Israeli system; some said they feared retaliation by settlers or the authorities if they did.

Madonna has urged the Pope to go to Gaza and “bring your light” to the children there.

In a plea shared across her social media channels, the pop star told the pontiff he is “the only one of us who cannot be denied entry” and that “there is no more time”.

“Politics cannot affect change,” wrote the queen of pop, who was raised Catholic.

“Only consciousness can. Therefore I am reaching out to a Man of God.”

The Like A Prayer singer told her social media followers her son Rocco’s birthday prompted her post.

“I feel the best gift I can give to him as a mother – is to ask everyone to do what they can to help save the innocent children caught in the crossfire in Gaza.

“I am not pointing fingers, placing blame or taking sides. Everyone is suffering. Including the mothers of the hostages. I pray that they are released as well.”

Pope Leo has been outspoken about the crisis in Gaza since his inauguration, calling for an end to the “barbarity of war”.

“I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, of indiscriminate use of force and forced displacement of the population,” he said in July.

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WHO chief thanks Madonna

Every child under the age of five in Gaza is now at risk of acute malnutrition, according to UNICEF – “a condition that didn’t exist in Gaza just 20 months ago”.

At the end of May, the NGO reported that more than 50,000 children had been killed or injured since October 2023.

World Health Organisation director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus thanked Madonna for her post, saying: “humanity and peace must prevail”.

“Thank you, Madonna, for your compassion, solidarity and commitment to care for everyone caught in the Gaza crisis, especially the children. This is greatly needed,” he wrote on X.

Sky News has approached the Vatican for comment.

Sky News has obtained shocking CCTV from inside the main hospital in the city of Sweida in southern Syria – where our team found more than 90 corpses laid out in the grounds following a week of intense fighting.

Warning this article shows images of a shooting

The CCTV images show men in army fatigues shooting dead a volunteer dressed in medical scrubs at point-blank range while a crowd of other terrified health workers are held at gunpoint with their hands in the air.

The mainly Druze city of Sweida was the scene of nearly a week of violent clashes, looting and executions last month which plunged the new authorities into their worst crisis since the toppling of the country’s former dictator Bashar al Assad.

The new Syrian government troops were accused of partaking in the atrocities they were sent in to quell between the Druze minority and the Arab Bedouin minority groups.

The government troops were forced to withdraw when Israeli jets entered the fray, saying they were protecting the Druze minority and bombed army targets in Sweida and the capital Damascus.

Days of bloodletting ensued, with multiple Arab tribes, Druze militia and armed gangs engaging in pitched battles and looting before a ceasefire was agreed.

The government troops then set up checkpoints and barricades encircling Sweida to prevent the Arab tribes re-entering.

The extrajudicial killing captured on CCTV inside the Sweida hospital is corroborated by eyewitnesses we spoke to who were among the group, as well as other medics in the hospital and a number of survivors and patients.

The CCTV is date- and time-stamped as mid-afternoon on 16 July and the different camera angles show the men (who tell the hospital workers they are government troops) marauding through the hospital; and in at least one case, smashing the CCTV cameras with the butt of a rifle.

One of the nurses present, who requested anonymity, told us: “They told us if we talked about the shooting or showed any film, we’d be killed too. I thought I was going to die.”

Dr Obeida Abu Fakher, a doctor who was in the operating section at the time, told us: “They told us they were the new Syrian army and interior police. We cannot have peace with these people. They are terrorists.”

Read more:
Inside Sweida: The Syrian city ravaged by sectarian violence
Who are the Druze and who are they fighting in Syria?
Why Israel is getting involved in Syria’s internal fighting

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Multiple patients and survivors told us when we visited the hospital last month that government troops had participated in the horror which swept through Sweida for days but this is the first visual evidence that some took part in atrocities inside the main hospital.

In other images, one of the men can be seen smashing the CCTV camera with the butt of his rifle – and another is wearing a black sweater which appears to be the uniform associated with the country’s interior security.

One survivor calling himself Mustafa Sehnawi, an American citizen from New Jersey, told us: “It’s the government who sent those troops, it’s the government of Syria who killed those people… we need help.”

The government responded with a statement from the interior ministry saying they would be investigating the incident which they “denounced and condemned” in the strongest terms.

The statement went on to promise all those involved would be “held accountable” and punished.

The new Syrian president Ahmed al Sharaa is due to attend the United Nations General Assembly next month in New York – the first time a Syrian leader has attended since 1967 – and what happened in Sweida is certain to be among the urgent topics of discussion.