RAMALLAH, Palestine

Illegal Israeli settlers launched attacks targeting Palestinian farmers and residential areas in the West Bank on Saturday.


“The settler attacks occurred in the Jordan Valley (north), Hebron, and Bethlehem (south),” the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) and the Palestine News Agency Wafa reported.


The commission said in a statement that illegal settlers “raided the homes and tents of citizens in the Jordan Valley area and destroyed their belongings, and attacked shepherds in the area.”


It added that the attack affected “the residence of citizen Fuad Draghmeh in the Ein Al-Hilweh community in the northern Jordan Valley, and the tent of citizen Mohammed Abu Mta'awe in Al-Sakout area."


In the southern West Bank, a witness told Anadolu that armed settlers attacked several Palestinian farmers inside their fields in the town of Nahalin, west of Bethlehem, to force them to leave.


He added that dozens of them attacked Palestinians in the Banias area northeast of the town, threatening them with death if they did not leave the area. Later, the Israeli army intervened to demand that the farmers leave their lands on the pretext that it could not protect them from the illegal settlers.


In Bethlehem as well, Wafa reported that “a group of settlers attacked farmers after they had finished harvesting quantities of wheat in the lands of Wadi al-Abyad in the wilderness of Tuqu' (east of Bethlehem) and seized them (wheat) by force of arms.”


As for the city of Hebron, the news agency mentioned that illegal settlers “in Israeli military uniforms assaulted and beat young man Omar Musa Mohammed (20 years old) while he was grazing sheep in the Wadi Ma'in area in Masafer Yatta, causing him bruises.”


It said that illegal settlers attacked “a number of shepherds in the Khallet Al-Dabaa area in Masafer Yatta (south of Hebron), forcing them to leave the area.”


Tensions have been high across the occupied West Bank since Israel launched a deadly military offensive against the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 34,300 people following a Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.


Nearly 491 Palestinians have since been killed and over 4,800 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied West Bank, according to the Health Ministry.


Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide, and guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.



*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala