Israeli settlers rampage through Palestinian villages, setting vehicles on fire
Israeli settlers set ablaze property across the occupied West Bank on Monday in the latest rampage against Palestinian towns and villages.
Under the protection of Israeli forces, crowds of settlers launched attacks near the village of al-Funduq near Qalqilya, the site of a shooting earlier on Monday that left three Israeli settlers dead.
Attacks extended to a few villages east of the city, including Hajja, Farata and Immatin, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Settlers set fire to a vehicle, threw stones, damaged homes, destroyed crops, threw flammable material at an uninhabited building and even burned a bulldozer in one of the villages.
Palestinians who attempted to confront the attacks were met with live bullets from Israeli forces, according to the local news website Arab48.
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Another arson attack was reported in the town of Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah, where an agricultural room belonging to one of the residents was burnt, according to sources interviewed by Wafa.
In Bethlehem, settlers pelted stones at vehicles passing through the main road. No injuries were reported.
Israeli settlers attacked multiple Palestinian villages, including Turmus Ayya and Immatin, in the occupied West Bank, burning property and vehicles belonging to Palestinians.
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The attacks followed calls by settlers on social media to carry out assaults on Palestinians after a… pic.twitter.com/9kYaGwgRXV
The large-scale attacks followed a shooting in the village of al-Funduq, where attackers targeted a bus and two cars on a road settlers often transit through to the illegal settlements of Kedumim, Shavei Shomron and others.
Israeli officials said two Palestinians were responsible for the shooting, with the fate of the attackers unknown
The subsequent manhunt has cut off Qalqilya and surrounding areas, with Israel's military tightening its control on exits and entry points and setting up roadblocks.
Incitement against Palestinians
The attacks came amid increasing incitement of violence against Palestinians by far-right Israeli politicians following the Monday shooting, with Palestinians being labelled as "terrorists."
Israel's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, described the attack as an act of terrorism and compared it to the events in Gaza.
"Those who trust the Palestinian Authority to maintain the security of Israeli citizens wake up to a morning when terrorists are again slaughtering Jewish residents," the far-right minister wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Smotrich added that the occupied West Bank must end up looking like north Gaza's Jabalia, which has been decimated following Israel's implementation of the "Generals' Plan" to ethnically cleanse the area.
Meanwhile, Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said that Israelis should realise that there are no commonalities with Palestinians.
"Whoever strives for an end to the war in Gaza will receive a war in Judea and Samaria," he said in a post on X, using the Israeli name for the West Bank.
Settler violence is not a new phenomenon in the occupied West Bank, where large swathes of territory are under Israeli civil and military control.
However, since Israel's war on Gaza began in October 2023, land seizures and violent attacks aimed at forcing Palestinians to abandon their homes have spiked.
Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in 2024 was the worst on record, according to the UN.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) registered 1,400 incidents by settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, including physical assaults, arson attacks, raids on Palestinian communities and the destruction of fruit trees.
This amounts to nearly four incidents per day resulting in the killing and wounding of Palestinians, damage to their property or both.
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live in roughly 300 illegal settlements in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, all of which have been built since Israel captured the territories in the 1967 conflict.
Under international law, settlement construction in an occupied territory is illegal.
Around 4,700 people were internally displaced across the West Bank over the past year, with 12 percent citing settler violence and access restrictions as the reason for their displacement, OCHA said.
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