Lobbying Political Representatives concerning settler terrorism and displacement in East Jerusalem and the West Bank (9 Jan 2026)

Writing to MPs and other relevant parties (local media, religious bodies, organisations) can be an effective way of taking action to raise awareness of the situation in Palestine / Israel. ICAHD responds to events by preparing sample letters as tools to guide you and it is always best to personalise your letter. If you have visited Palestine/Israel include that information therefore you have witnessed the situation and can testify to the reality.

The sample letter below can be used to raise awareness of ongoing settler terrorism and the displacement of Palestinians in the West bank and East Jerusalem and was prepared on 9 January 2026.

Contact details for your MP may be found here.

Dear

As your constituent, I am alarmed about the current situation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, where the drastic increase in settler terrorism and house demolitions has proceeded without any attempts by western powers and their compliant media to give it the attention it merits or even to mention it at all.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in the year 2025 more than 830 Palestinians were injured by Israeli settlers in unprovoked attacks: an average of two Palestinians injured per day. In the last two weeks of the year alone, Israeli authorities demolished 50 structures in Area C and East Jerusalem for lacking building permits. As part of its policy of ethnic cleansing, Israel rejects close to 100 per cent of all Palestinian applications for building permits.

In addition, 2025 saw the deaths of 240 Palestinians, including 55 children at the hands of Israeli forces or settlers. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have a legal duty under the Geneva Conventions to protect the occupied population; instead, they have often assisted the settlers, passively or actively, in their attacks. This is ethnic cleansing by drip feed, the steady but unspectacular nature of which may account for its absence from western news sheets.

Recently, Israeli authorities forcibly evicted two Palestinian families from their homes in the Batn al-Hawa area of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem, to ‘give’ the properties to an Israeli settler organisation. At the same time, the last six remaining families in Khirbet Yanoun, near Nablus, suffered settler attacks that drove them from the homes they had lived in for more than 60 years. Yanoun is now ‘Arab-free’, a goal of Zionists settler colonial agenda.

The lack of reaction, apart from occasional verbal handwringing, by western powers has encouraged Israeli settlers to conclude that they can continue their attacks on Palestinian families with impunity. These attacks are not confined to physical intimidation. Settlers, as well as forcibly evicting families from their homes, also ensure that those who remain will suffer economically. Olive trees are frequently burned or chopped down, inflicting a spiritual injury on the trees’ owners as well as a financial one, since the trees are an integral part of Palestinian identity and heritage.

Palestinian shepherds have their flocks stolen or killed or find that their grazing lands have been seized for ‘military’ purposes. Water reservoirs are cemented over, and irrigation pipes are sabotaged. Israel’s leaders have made no secret of their intention to possess all the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. The ‘two-state solution’, for so long touted by western countries as the solution, has always been rejected by Israeli ministers.

It is high time that Britain stepped up to its responsibilities, as the power that nursed the Israeli state into its existence in the first place. As my representative, would you please forward this letter to the Rt Hon Yvette Cooper, Foreign Secretary, alerting her to these developments and requesting that she inform the Israeli government that if it does not immediately begin to protect the Palestinians under its occupation instead of persecuting them, Britain will end all military and economic cooperation with Israel and assist the efforts of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to terminate Israel’s illegal occupation, as set out in its landmark ruling of 19 July 2024. Thank you.

Sincerely,

— ICAHD (icahd.org)
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