Hundreds of retired IDF generals and colonels urged US President Donald Trump to pressure Israel to crack down on violence against Palestinians by settlers in the West Bank, in a letter published Monday.
The letter comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to fly to Washington for a meeting with Trump and after a week in which already high settler violence surged after a deadly clash between settlers and Palestinians over the weekend.
“Unless arrested swiftly and decisively, escalating violence in the West Bank is poised to ignite the region and carries severe ramifications for both Israeli security and US regional interests,” wrote Matan Vilnai, a retired major general in the Israel Defense Forces, on behalf of the Commanders for Israel’s Security group.
“It is our professional judgment that no one but you, Mr. President, can avert this calamity,” he wrote, urging Trump to press Netanyahu on the matter during their meeting in Washington on Tuesday.
“Whereas our security agencies excel in dealing with Hamas and other West Bank Palestinian terror groups, they are severely constrained when it comes to Jewish terrorists,” wrote Vilnai.
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“It is no secret that certain members of our current government orchestrate much of the chaos, including by shielding their followers – who are armed and driven by messianic impulses – from the law and its enforcement.”
The ex-commander didn’t name the government officials he was referring to, but similar charges have been widely levied against far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, among others.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (left) is seen at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City during Jerusalem Day celebrations, May 14, 2026. (Jamal Awad/Flash90); National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir tours the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City during Jerusalem Day celebrations on May 14, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Ben Gvir – who has several past convictions, including disturbing the peace, incitement to racism, and supporting a terror group – has overseen the police during a time when few have been arrested in connection with settler attacks, and even fewer prosecuted, despite near-nightly raids of Palestinian communities including arsons, break-ins, and physical assaults.
He has also welcomed Defense Minister Israel Katz’s decision to halt the use of administrative detention – a mechanism to detain people indefinitely to prevent terror attacks, without the evidentiary threshold of a typical arrest – against Jews.
Smotrich, meanwhile, has been criticized for working to bring down the Palestinian Authority and West Bank economy, with the stated aim of preventing a Palestinian state. He has also been a major force in pushing the spread of illegal settler outposts across the territory.
Letter warns of consequences worse than Oct. 7
In the letter to Trump, Vilnai warned: “Should the rising swell in Jewish settler terror activity and the government policy of choking the Palestinian Authority (financially and otherwise) continue, the consequences may prove even more catastrophic than the October 7 Hamas atrocities and its multi-front fallout.”
“This trajectory threatens to devastate Israeli security, undermine US interests, and shatter regional stability. It will foreclose any option of proceeding with your Gaza 20 Point Plan and admirable ambition to expand your great achievement — the Abraham Accords,” he wrote.
The letter was signed on behalf of Commanders for Israel’s Security, a group whose website claims a membership of “over 550 retired IDF colonels and generals as well as Mossad, Shin Bet, Police, National Security Council and Diplomatic corps equivalents.”
A Palestinian sprays water on the window of a damaged house following an attack by Israeli settlers the previous day in the village of Sarra, near the West Bank city of Nablus, July 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
While Netanyahu’s right-wing government has reacted to the surge in violence, by ordering a crackdown on the Palestinians, experts echoed the letter to Trump, insisting that the failure to stop settler violence was the main problem.
Speaking Monday, Michael Milstein, the former head of the Palestinian department of Israel’s military intelligence, told Army Radio: “I don’t recognize on the Palestinian side the raising of the flag of intifada,” referring to the deadly terror-driven uprisings that have roiled Israel in the past. “The threats are developing mainly because of the behavior of the Jewish side.”
Shin Bet figures from earlier this year found that three times more Palestinians were victims of terror attacks in the West Bank than Jews, echoing warnings raised by various security officials, including senior commanders in the IDF.
According to reports, Netanyahu and his cabinet voted in March to greenlight a plan to tackle settler violence, but didn’t announce it publicly due to political considerations.
The premier asserted in December 2025 that violent settlers numbered just some 70 youths who, he said, were not even from the West Bank. Earlier this month, however, he revised that figure upward to 150 “juvenile delinquents,” who he said were “brought into the West Bank.”
Israeli settlers set agricultural lands on fire near the West Bank town of Beit Furik, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Eisenkot: West Bank ‘on the precipice of anarchy’
Also raising concerns on Monday, Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff and Netanyahu’s leading rival for the premiership in October’s national elections, told the Yediot Aharonot daily that he was worried about a loss of control of the West Bank, saying: “The reality there is highly charged, on the precipice of anarchy, despite the efforts of the IDF and Shin Bet to eliminate terrorism.”
Eisenkot specifically blamed Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir for the situation.
Netanyahu has “for coalition needs, effectively taken apart the organization that governs Judea and Samaria — and that’s the IDF, as sovereign,” he said, referring to the West Bank by its biblical names.
“What I’m seeing today is a lack of government backing of IDF commanders, even defamation via mouthpieces of the prime minister,” the ex-general charged.
Head of the Yashar party Gadi Eisenkot attends a conference at the Peres Center in Tel Aviv, July 12, 2026. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
The debate over violence in the West Bank has been further thrust into the spotlight this week after a deadly incident in the Palestinian village of Tell on Friday, in which two Israelis – one an IDF commander and the other part of the civilian security squad of a nearby settlement – were killed, along with four Palestinians, after a Palestinian grabbed the security squad member’s rifle.
The clash came amid a confrontation between residents of the village and a group of Israelis – including children and armed civilian adults – who had entered the area, which is off-limits to Israelis, without coordinating with the army. Some Palestinians have accused the group of attacking locals leading up to the altercation, which the Israelis in the group have denied.
Following the Friday shooting, groups of settlers attacked several Palestinian towns and villages overnight, torching two mosques, a home and several vehicles and spraying graffiti calling for “revenge.”
Settlers said to torch trucks in Nablus-area village
Violence continued overnight Sunday. Palestinians reported an attack by settlers on the West Bank village of Beita, south of Nablus, alleging the assailants raided an industrial zone and set trucks on fire near a factory.
Palestinian media also reported that settlers attempted to set fire to a home in the village of Talfit. According to footage from the scene, the entrance to the house sustained minor fire damage. No injuries have been reported.
Hebrew graffiti was sprayed on the wall at the entrance to the home reading “Benyahu, revenge” — apparently referring to Benyahu Melet, who was killed in the shooting attack near Tel — and “Regards to Bluth,” apparently referring to Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth.
مصادر محلية: مستوطنون يخطّون شعارات عنصرية على جدارن منزل المواطن واجد مسلم من بلدة تلفيت قضاء نابلس، ويحاولون إحراقه. pic.twitter.com/BCA2EGwb35
— بوابة اللاجئين الفلسطينيين (@refugeesps) July 27, 2026
More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers since the war started, according to the PA health ministry. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops, or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, some 68 civilians and Israeli security personnel have been killed in Israel and the West Bank, most of them in terror attacks. Another eight members of the security forces were killed in clashes during raids in Palestinian cities in the West Bank.
The same period has also seen a major surge in attacks by settler extremists on Palestinians and their property across the West Bank. The IDF recorded 867 incidents of nationalistic crime and settler violence in 2025. The total for 2024 was 682 incidents.
Nurit Yohanan contributed to this report