Israel’s Security Establishment Counted 660 Nationalistic Attacks in Six Months, a 63 Percent Rise

Times of Israel, in a report timed 10 August 14:40 and bylined Stav Levaton with ToI staff, put Israeli security establishment figures at 660 “nationalistic” attacks in the first six months of 2026, against 405 in January–June 2025 — a rise of 63 percent, accompanied by an increase in Palestinian casualties. Attacks on Israeli forces rose 50 percent over the same period. The dispatch does not identify which body produced the count, and the definition of a “nationalistic” attack is not given, so the series cannot yet be compared against Shin Bet or NGO tallies. What it is, is the state counting itself. The same window supplies the texture: settlers surrounded the Qusra home of Youssef Hassan for more than a day; the IDF closed the village of Taybeh to non-residents on 9 August, telling Reuters the aim was to prevent growing settler attacks on Palestinians.

On 8 August the IDF said it was reviewing footage showing an Israeli soldier, alongside two Israeli civilians, beating a Palestinian man in Idna, stating that troops were dispatched after a “confrontation” and that “the incident and the conduct of the forces are under review.” At least 11 Palestinians were reported wounded in village raids over the 7–8 August weekend; Haaretz reported five hurt, two of them children, when homes were torched on 6 August. Against that, the enforcement line: ToI reported on 10 August that the army will release settler Tal Yinon Dardik from house arrest, barring him from the West Bank and requiring him to report to a police station twice daily. He is a suspect in a March attack in which settlers allegedly zip-tied a Palestinian man’s genitalia. On 9 August the Foreign Ministry’s public diplomacy staff visited a settlement and met Yesha Council chairman Yisrael Ganz; senior deputy director general Yacov Livne posted the photograph himself.

Assessment: A number produced inside the security establishment is harder for the government to dismiss than the same number from Yesh Din or B’Tselem, which is why it is worth holding onto — but it is also why the missing methodology matters. Until the originating body and the definition of “nationalistic” are on the record, the 63 percent is a direction, not a chart. The enforcement gap is the harder fact: the army restricting Israeli movement at Taybeh is an operational admission, and the Dardik measure shows what accountability looks like at the top of the file. Set that beside a foreign ministry photographing itself at the Yesha Council.