Dozens of Israel’s most senior former political, military, intelligence, legal and cultural figures have threatened to take Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to court unless it acts to “eradicate Jewish terrorism” in the occupied West Bank, warning that settler and military violence against Palestinians is being enabled to advance an “ethnic cleansing” agenda and future annexation.
In an extraordinary “final warning” to the Israeli government and security establishment, the signatories accused Israeli officials of allowing Jewish extremists to carry out murder, sexual assault, theft, arson and desecration of the dead with “almost complete impunity”. They warned that the campaign of violence breaks Israeli and international law, threatens Israel’s security, deepens its global isolation and fuels anti-Semitism worldwide.
“This letter is a wake-up call and a final warning: We demand that you take all necessary measures to immediately eradicate Jewish terrorism that has been prevalent in Judea and Samaria in recent years,” the letter said, using an Israeli term for the occupied West Bank.
The letter, which has not been made public but was seen by The Guardian, was sent to Netanyahu’s office, the ministries of defence and national security, the military, police and intelligence services. Its signatories include two former prime ministers, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, former heads of Israel’s security services, former military chiefs of staff, former judges, senior legal advisers, rabbis, former ambassadors, Nobel chemistry laureate David Kornberg, novelist David Grossman and 10 Israel Prize winners.
The signatories accused Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners of enabling attacks on Palestinians as part of an extremist project of ethnic cleansing and annexation.
“This is not solely a military and police failure, but the implementation of an overt policy by the Israeli government and its prime minister in general, and by the relevant ministers in particular,” the letter said.
It accused officials of ordering “the military, the police, and Shin Bet” to enable “the terrorism of Jewish criminals” because the phenomenon serves the government’s ideology of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in the occupied West Bank to facilitate future annexation.
In one of the most striking passages, the letter compared attacks on Palestinians to the historic persecution of Jews in Europe.
“The crimes of Jewish terrorism in the territories are reminiscent of similar crimes and pogroms committed against our people by other nations in eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries,” it said.
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The letter also accused the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) of complicity, saying the military has a “clear policy of ignoring the crimes of Jewish terrorism”. It said soldiers from regional defence units and settlement security squads have themselves been involved in such crimes, while other attackers have carried weapons obtained from the Israeli military or the national security ministry.
The signatories warned that recent condemnations of settler violence by Israeli political and military leaders are not credible without action. In a section addressed directly to Gen Avi Bluth, the Israeli commander in the occupied West Bank, the letter asked: “How come you have not been successful in eradicating Jewish terror, given that the identity of their leaders and their places of residence are well known to you, and they are estimated to number a few hundred [people]?”
The letter said those responsible for violence benefit from financial, political and legal support, as well as a culture of impunity in which the Israeli police and military each claim the other has jurisdiction to prosecute attackers. It also rejected Netanyahu’s previous claim that settler violence was the work of a few dozen teenagers, saying the assertion had “no basis in reality”.
The warning comes as Israel faces mounting international scrutiny over its treatment of Palestinian children across the Occupied Palestinian Territory. A new report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children, amounting to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, as well as war crimes in the occupied West Bank.
“The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” Commission chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said. The report found that, between 7 October 2023 and 7 October 2025, at least 20,179 Palestinian children were killed in Gaza, around 30 per cent of the total death toll, while 44,143 children were injured.
The Commission said Israel’s deliberate targeting of children formed a key element in establishing genocidal intent, warning that “by targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist.” It also documented starvation, forced displacement, attacks on healthcare and education, psychological trauma and harm to newborns and future generations through the destruction of maternity and neonatal care.
In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Commission examined the torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, and sexual and gender-based violence inflicted on Palestinian children, particularly during mass arrests and in detention. Palestinian boys were subjected to forced strip searches, beatings and food deprivation, according to reporting on the UN findings.
The Israeli government rejected the UN report, calling it a “libellous sham” and denying that it deliberately targets children. Israel has also rejected previous genocide allegations despite the mounting death toll, the destruction of Gaza and findings by international legal experts and human rights bodies.
The latest warning from within Israel’s own former security and political establishment adds to growing evidence that violence against Palestinians is not only being carried out by extremist settlers, but is being tolerated, protected or directly enabled by the state. The signatories said that, if Netanyahu and senior officials fail to condemn and stop the violence, they will petition Israel’s High Court to force them to act.
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