World
New Arab League chief says he was blocked by Israel from visiting West Bank
The new secretary general of the Arab League, Nabil Fahmy, said Wednesday that Israel had blocked him from visiting Ramallah, in what would have been his first foreign visit since taking office this month.
The regional bloc’s secretariat was informed by Palestinian authorities “of the Israeli occupation authorities’ rejection of a visit… to the occupied Palestinian territories” to visit Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, Fahmy’s office said in a statement.
Fahmy said Palestinians in the territory “suffer siege in their towns and cities, surrounded by expanding settlements and settler-only roads, and are subjected to the brutality and terrorism of settlers who enjoy both the protection and encouragement of the occupying state.”
The Egyptian veteran diplomat has taken the helm of the Arab League — a 22-member bloc based in Cairo — at a time when its function as a forum for regional solidarity has become concentrated almost entirely on the Palestinian cause.
Israel did not immediately comment on the reported denial of Fahmy’s request to visit the Palestinian territory, which it has controlled since capturing the West Bank from Jordan during the 1967 Six Day War. Israel annexed East Jerusalem — a move not recognized by most of the international community — while the West Bank has remained under varying forms of Israeli military and civil rule ever since.
Under the current Israeli government, which is the most right-wing in its history, settlement construction has surged at an unprecedented pace, as has the legalization of wildcat settlement outposts that were built outside of Israeli law. From late 2022 to April 2026, the government approved or legalized 103 settlements, a major increase over previous years.
Fahmy’s denied visit comes at a time of largely unchecked settler violence against Palestinians, which has left thousands of people displaced and unable to return to their communities, some of which have been entirely taken over by extremist settlers establishing illegal outposts on Palestinian land.
According to a report published Thursday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 5,900 people in the West Bank were displaced from their homes due to attacks by extremist settlers between January 2023 and April 2026.
The agency also said it had documented 5,336 settler attacks during that period that resulted in damage to people or property.
This year, settler attacks have become the #1 cause of Palestinian displacement in the #WestBank. These attacks cause casualties and property damage, and restrict people’s access to livelihoods – deepening their humanitarian needs. See our updated map: https://t.co/E9Rgqohe5j pic.twitter.com/7EW0qFFxsQ
— OCHA OPT (Palestine) (@ochaopt) July 9, 2026
Accompanying the announcement, the UN published a map showing the geographic distribution of the incidents. According to the map, most of the displacement occurred in the Jordan Valley, particularly in the area between Ramallah and Jericho, and in the South Hebron Hills. Those displaced are primarily Palestinians and Bedouins living in small communities consisting of several dozen families, rather than in villages or towns.
According to the UN, 45 communities were completely displaced and 72 were partially displaced.
