The West Bank land grab no one’s watching

This episode of The Story investigates the escalating land seizures by Israeli settlers in the West Bank amid global distraction from the Iran war. Journalist Richard Spencer reports from Abu Fallah, a Palestinian village in Area B, where settler violence has surged since the conflict in Iran began. Despite being under Israeli military occupation since 1967, the West Bank—home to over two million Palestinians—is seeing a wave of illegal outposts established by right-wing settler gangs. These groups, emboldened by the absence of IDF patrols due to operations in Gaza and Lebanon, attack farms, burn olive groves, and have killed seven Palestinians since February. The Israeli military claims neutrality, but locals accuse them of siding with settlers by firing tear gas toward Palestinian villages and failing to arrest perpetrators. The episode reveals a broader strategy: using international distraction to de facto annex Palestinian land, undermining the viability of a future Palestinian state. With U.S. sanctions lifted under Trump and the two-state solution widely abandoned on both sides, the Palestinian population faces increasing despair, displacement, and erasure of their territorial and political future.