Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are whirling after Israeli settlers destroyed a village overnight, killing a 23-year-old male and wounding several others in the latest happening of deadly brutality against Palestinians in the area.
The Palestinian Health Ministry stated that Mahmoud Abdel Qader Sadda was fatally hit in the attack on Jit, in the northern West Bank about 10km (six miles) west of Nablus. Dozens of masked Israeli settlers landed on the village, opening conflagration on residents, setting cars burning and destroying homes and other possessions, according to witnesses and video footage from the assault.
The attack came amid a wave of Israeli military and settler brutality against Palestinians in the West Bank, which has spread in the shadow of Israel’s fighting in the Gaza Strip. Nearly 600 Palestinians have been destroyed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank between the start of the Gaza fighting on October 7 and August 12, according to the latest figures from the United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Office (OCHA). Rights bodies also have criticised Israel for permitting its forces as well as settlers to perform with “endemic impunity” in their aggression against Palestinians.
The attack on Jit drew widespread denunciation from Palestinians as well as foreign leaders, including those from nations that continue to provide military and diplomatic backing for Israel amid the Gaza war. A representative for the US National Security Council said that “attacks by violent immigrants against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank are inappropriate and must stop”. “Israeli authorities must take steps to protect all communities from harm, this includes interfering to stop such violence and holding all perpetrators of such brutality to account,” the spokesperson stated, as reported by US media.
The US ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, added in a social media post that Israeli settler aggression “must stop and the convicts be held to account Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, stated the attack in Jit “aimed at intimidating Palestinian civilians”. “Day after day, in an almost total impunity, Israeli settlers fuel brutality in the occupied West Bank, donating to endanger any chance of peace,” he noted on social media, provoking Israel to “stop these unacceptable actions immediately”.
Ravina Shamdasani, the representative for the UN’s human rights office, declared the violence in Jit was “not a remote attack”. “It is the direct outcome of Israel’s policy of settlement in the West Bank. We have been documenting for the past years about settlers shooting Palestinian communities in their motherland in the West Bank with impunity,” Shamdasani briefed reporters.
“And this is the essence of the matter: the impunity that the perpetrators of such serious violations have been enjoying.” She said that there have been “reports of Israeli security forces standing by as episodes take place”, as well as reports of “weapons being distributed to the settlers”.
