According to Dhyab Masha’la, the head of the local council, dozens of settlers allegedly attacked the village of al-Jaba, which is located 10 kilometers (six miles) southwest of Bethlehem, on Monday, torching three homes, one shack, and three vehicles.
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Masha ‘la claimed that the village’s residents had managed to extinguish the flames despite the attackers’ claims to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. There were no reported injuries.
In Sa’ir town, northeast of Hebron, earlier on Monday, Wafa claimed settlers attacked several civilians while setting fire to a home and two vehicles while protecting Israeli forces.
A number of women were hurt when Israeli settlers allegedly beat the Palestinians with batons and sharp objects, according to the report from the news agency. Israeli forces also prevented ambulances and fire engines from arriving at the scene, according to the report.
This year, settlers in the West Bank began to carry out almost daily attacks on Palestinians that involved killings, beatings, and property destruction, frequently under the protection of the Israeli military.
In the northern West Bank village of Deir Istiya, settlers set a mosque on fire last week.
In an “ongoing cycle of terror,” which has been occurring since the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, Israeli forces and settlers have carried out 2, 350 attacks across the West Bank last month alone.
Rarely are the crimes prosecuted for.
A military spokesman for Israel’s military said security forces were “searching for those involved” in the al-Jaba attack after being dispatched there in response to reports of “dozens of Israeli citizens” torching and vandalizing homes and vehicles.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has overseen the rapid expansion of settlements, called the attack “a small, extremist group” and said he would call on cabinet ministers to convene to address the issue.
Israel Katz, the government’s defense minister, stated on X that it would “not tolerate the attempts of a small group of violent and criminal anarchists to take the law into their own hands and tarnish the settler community.”
However, his statement supported the ongoing expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian soil.
Katz predicted that the government would “continue to grow and support the settlement enterprise throughout Judea and Samaria.”
The top UN tribunal, the International Court of Justice, ruled in December last year that Israeli occupation of the West Bank was unlawful and demanded that Israeli settlements be removed.
Leading rights organizations claim that as members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government push to officially annex the region, which has long operated under an apartheid system, there has been an increase in settler violence.
The UN’s human rights office warned in July that Israeli security forces were being supported, and in some cases, with the consent of settler violence.
Source: Aljazeera
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