Joe McConnell
Dozens of Israeli settlers set fire to homes and cars in a village in the occupied West Bank, with the Palestinian Health Ministry saying at least one person was killed.
Settlers, some of whom were wearing masks, threw stones and Molotov cocktails as they attacked the village of Jit, near the city of Nablus, on Thursday evening, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said a villager in his early 20s was killed and another person was seriously wounded in the chest. The IDF said it was reviewing the fatality report.
Israeli political leaders condemned the attack, vowing to punish those responsible. One Israeli citizen was arrested in Jit, the IDF said.
Footage purportedly showing homes and vehicles being set ablaze in Jit late on Thursday evening has emerged on social media.
Columns of smoke can be seen rising above the village.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that “those responsible for any criminal act will be caught and prosecuted.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog wrote in a post on X: “This is an extreme minority that harms the law-abiding settler community and the settlement as a whole, as well as the name and status of Israel in the world, at a particularly sensitive and difficult time.
“Law enforcement must act immediately” to bring those responsible to justice, Herzog added.
In a statement, the IDF said its forces were deployed to the village “within minutes” of receiving reports of violence, firing into the air to disperse the crowd. The attackers were then removed from Jit.
The IDF added that an investigation has been launched by the IDF, the Israeli security agency Shin Bet and the Israel Police following the “serious incident.”
Palestinians regularly accuse Israeli security forces of allowing violent settler groups to attack their villages.
According to OCHA, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Since October, there have been more than 1,000 settler attacks against Palestinians, with at least 1,390 people, including 660 children, displaced.
The attacks were often accompanied by lethal violence. OCHA recorded 107 attacks resulting in Palestinian casualties and injuries, of which 859 caused damage to Palestinian property.
International attention has focused on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but the scale of settler violence has prompted the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom to impose sanctions on some settler leaders and, for the first time, entire settler outposts.
