Dozens of Israeli settlers have attacked a Palestinian village near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, killing at least one person, in the latest deadly incident of settler violence amid surging tensions in the Palestinian territory.
The Palestinian health ministry said one man was killed and another critically wounded by Israeli settlers who opened fire during the Thursday night attack in the village of Jit, in the north of the West Bank, which is surrounded by Israeli settlements.
Footage shared on social media showed buildings and vehicles on fire after the attacks. The Israeli rights group Yesh Din said on Friday four houses and six cars were torched.
Hassan, who lives in the village, told the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz: “There were about 100 settlers. They were masked, dressed in black, armed, and some had knives. It seemed planned. They didn’t look like children, they looked like adults.
“When I went outside to see what was happening, they attacked me with teargas. They torched my car and smashed another one, and then they continued into the village, after attacking more cars nearby. The army arrived about an hour later, they took their time and let them do whatever they wanted.”
Palestinians regularly accuse Israeli security forces of standing by and allowing groups of settlers to attack their houses and villages in assaults that have attracted increasing concern internationally.
Violence in the West Bank has surged since the Israel-Gaza war started after the Hamas attack of 7 October, and the number of Israeli settlements there – which are considered illegal under international law – have hit new records. On Friday, a herding community in Umm al-Jamal, in the Jordan valley, abandoned their village after increasing settler attacks.
The Israeli military said police and army units intervened and arrested one Israeli for interfering with the police during Friday’s violence in Jit. It condemned the attack, which it said diverted security forces from other responsibilities. It said it was examining reports about the death of the Palestinian and an investigation had been opened.
The office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a statement saying he viewed the attack with “utmost severity”.
“Those responsible for any offence will be apprehended and tried,” it said.
Netanyahu governs with the support of far-right parties that advocate more Israeli settlements in the West Bank and outright annexation. In a rare statement, the rightwing finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, wrote on X that the attackers in Jit had “nothing to do with the settlement and the settlers”.
“They are criminals who must be dealt with by the law enforcement authorities with the full force of the law,” he said.
The far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said citizens should not take the law into their own hands. However, he also appeared to accuse the army of being responsible for the attack, saying: “The fact that soldiers are not given backing to shoot stone-throwing terrorists leads to incidents like this evening’s.”
Yair Golan, the head of a new left-leaning alliance known as the Democrats, said Thursday’s violence “is not an extremist minority and a minor problem, but a violent group that enjoys enormous government support”.
Netanyahu had brought “representatives of the rioters in Jit into the Knesset and appointed them as ministers”, he said. “Without a change of government, this violent public will continue to run Israel and lead it to oblivion.”
The US and a number of European countries have imposed sanctions on violent settlers and called repeatedly on Israel to do more to curb the attacks.
Meanwhile, in Qatar, talks aimed at brokering a ceasefire in the Gaza war entered a second day on Friday. While Hamas and Israel agreed in principle last month to implement a three-phase plan publicly proposed by Joe Biden in May, both sides have since requested “amendments” and “clarifications”, leaving the negotiations at an impasse.
A big breakthrough is not expected, since Hamas is not directly participating, but the renewed push for talks is more vital than ever after the assassinations of a top Hezbollah commander and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political chief. The killings in Beirut and Tehran, which the Lebanese group and Iran have blamed on Israel, threaten to transform the war in Gaza into a region-wide conflict.
The Israeli army also ordered on Friday new evacuations in southern and central Gaza of areas previously designated as humanitarian “safe zones”, saying the areas had been used by Hamas as a base for firing mortars and rockets towards Israel.
Warning flyers and text messages had been sent out in the area north of the southern city of Khan Younis and in the eastern part of Deir al-Balah, where tens of thousands of people have sought shelter from fighting in other parts of Gaza.
