The agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), has so‐far issued a stark warning that the increase in settler attacks and settlement expansion across the West Bank is driving the forced departure of Palestinian communities and setting the scene for de facto annexation of land.

Roland Frédéric, UNRWA’s director of operations in the West Bank, wrote on X that the intensification of settler assaults, demolitions and evictions has left vulnerable Palestinian populations with little option but to leave their land under increasingly coercive conditions. He identified multiple refugee camps including those in Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams as already evacuated, with residents blocked from returning. 

Frédéric stressed that while attention often focuses on the Gaza situation, any relative reduction of pressure in Gaza must not be used as a pretext to tighten occupation measures elsewhere. “The future of Gaza and West Bank are one,” he declared, underlining UNRWA’s readiness to work with all parties for a lasting outcome.

The data he referenced is troubling: according to Palestinian statistics cited by UNRWA, since October 2023 settlers in the West Bank have carried out thousands of attacks, resulting in deaths, injuries and community displacement. 

Further complicating the picture are Israeli legislative moves seen by many Palestinians as advancing formal annexation. For example, the approval in the Israeli legislature of bills to impose sovereignty over parts of the West Bank, including significant settlements. These steps coincide with the uptick in on-the-ground actions, demolitions, evictions, settlement expansion and violence. UNRWA regards this combination of measures as coercive, cumulatively creating a reality on the ground which undermines Palestinian presence and governance.

From a Palestinian-centred viewpoint, the escalation is less about isolated incidents and more about a consistent strategy: gradually rendering Palestinian land untenable, displacing communities, consolidating settlement presence and thereby making the notion of Palestinian territorial continuity ever weaker. The concern is that what is occurring amounts to a creeping annexation by doing rather than by declared decree.

In addition, UNRWA reports that laws targeting its work, including restrictions and closures of UN schools and the de-facto expulsion of international staff, are hampering key humanitarian and educational services for Palestinians, further eroding support structures for vulnerable communities.

For Palestinians watching closely, the implication is that the cease-fire developments in Gaza should not distract from parallel changes in the West Bank. If settlement expansion, forced displacement, and legislative measures continue unchecked, the result may be a vastly altered reality in which Palestinian self-rule, continuity and state-building options are fundamentally curtailed. UNRWA’s call is clear: any meaningful peace and stability must address both Gaza and the West Bank together.