The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Wednesday that 2024 represents the worst year for Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since it began tracking such incidents nearly 20 years ago.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it recorded some 1,400 incidents of settler violence in 2024, equivalent to nearly four attacks a day. Incidents included “physical assaults, arson attacks, raids on Palestinian communities and the destruction of fruit trees.”

Israeli settlers have become more bold and aggressive since the current Netanyahu government took power in December 2022. The coalition government, which includes extremist settlers, issued a statement when it was first formed saying that it would make expanding settlements in the West Bank a priority.

The genocidal war in Gaza also served to distract from the situation in the West Bank, which the settlers exploited. Amidst the rise in settler violence, the Netanyahu government approved the Israeli seizure of large areas of the occupied territories.

OCHA also said that 2024 was the second deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since it began recording casualties, after 2023, which was the deadliest year. Most of those killed were killed by the Israeli occupation army.

“More than 480 Palestinians, including 91 children, were killed across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Most were killed by Israeli forces,” the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

The office added that Palestinians from the West Bank "killed 35 Israelis, including three children, either in the West Bank or in Israel."

The incoming Trump administration is expected to be unprecedentedly supportive of Israel’s plans to continue stealing land in the West Bank. Mike Huckabee, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel, is an outspoken advocate of Israel’s full annexation of the occupied territories, which it calls “Judea and Samaria.”

During a visit to a West Bank settlement in 2017, Huckabee said: “I believe Israel has a title to Judea and Samaria. There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as the West Bank. It is Judea and Samaria. There is no such thing as settlements. They are communities, they are neighborhoods, they are cities. There is no such thing as occupation.”