Around 600 former senior officials from Israel’s security and intelligence services have issued a stark warning to Defence Minister Yisrael Katz, describing the rapid rise in settler violence in the occupied West Bank as a “strategic threat” to Israel’s security.

In a letter released on Monday under the banner of the “Commanders for Israel’s Security” movement, the signatories urged Katz to take immediate action to curb what they termed “Jewish terrorism”, warning that continued government inaction risked pushing the region towards chaos and a wider confrontation.

The former commanders said the surge in attacks by settlers now constitutes a direct threat to national stability, adding that “the minister’s apparent inability to address the violence, acts of Jewish terrorism, and growing lawlessness is driving the region towards anarchy and unnecessary bloodshed”.

They stressed that the defence minister must intervene urgently “to halt the violence, restore the rule of law, and prevent a deterioration that endangers Israel’s regional and international standing as well as its internal cohesion”.

The movement, which includes former heads of Israel’s military, intelligence agencies, and police, warned that settler attacks have become increasingly organised, carried out by groups and individuals emboldened by political backing.

“These attacks now occur on an almost daily basis,” the letter said, “amounting to grave and destructive assaults on lives and property that have reached the level of organised mass violence.”

The signatories concluded that confronting all forms of terrorism is “a fundamental condition for safeguarding the state’s stability and preventing an avoidable escalation”.

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