New attacks near Bethlehem and Hebron underscore intensifying Israeli violence in occupied Palestinian territory.
Israeli settlers have launched two major arson attacks on Palestinian villages near Bethlehem and Hebron amid a wave of rising violence by Israel in the occupied West Bank.
Dozens of settlers rampaged through the village of al-Jaba, located 10km (six miles) southwest of Bethlehem, on Monday, torching three Palestinian homes, one shack and three vehicles, according to Dhyab Masha‘la, the head of the local council.
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Masha‘la told Palestinian news agency Wafa that the attackers caused extensive damage to the village, but that locals had managed to extinguish the flames. No casualties were reported.
Earlier on Monday, Wafa said settlers set fire to a home and two vehicles, and physically assaulted several civilians in Sa’ir town, northeast of Hebron, under the protection of Israeli forces.
The Israeli settlers beat the Palestinians with batons and sharp instruments, resulting in injuries to a number of women, with Israeli forces blocking fire engines and ambulances from reaching the scene, the agency reported.
Violence in the West Bank has broken new records this year, with settlers carrying out almost-daily attacks on Palestinians that have involved killings, beatings and the destruction of property, often under the protection of the Israeli military.
Last wek, settlers set a mosque ablaze in the village of Deir Istiya in the north of the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission says that Israeli forces and settlers carried out 2,350 attacks across the West Bank last month alone in an “ongoing cycle of terror”, which has been taking place in the shadow of the war in Gaza.
The violence is rarely prosecuted.
Referring to the attack on al-Jaba, an Israeli military spokesperson said security forces were “searching for those involved” after being deployed to the village following reports of “dozens of Israeli citizens” torching and vandalising houses and vehicles.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has overseen the rapid expansion of settlements, denounced Monday’s attack, calling the assailants a “small, extremist group” and signalling that he would convene cabinet ministers to address the problem.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said on X that the government would “not tolerate the attempts of a small group of violent and criminal anarchists who break the law to take the law into their own hands and tarnish the settler community”.
But his statement backed the continued expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian land.
The government, Katz said, would “continue to develop and foster the settlement enterprise throughout Judea and Samaria”.
Last year, the International Court of Justice – the top United Nations tribunal – ruled that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is illegal and called for removing Israeli settlements from the territory.
Settler violence has spiked as members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government push to formally annex the area, which has long operated under a system of apartheid, according to leading rights groups.
The United Nations’ human rights office warned in July that the settler violence was being carried out “with the acquiescence, support, and in some cases participation, of Israeli security forces”.
Last week, in a rare public rebuke, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and army chief Eyal Zamir condemned the burgeoning settler attacks.
