SAEDNEWS: Israeli occupation forces and illegal settlers escalated their campaign of destruction and repression across the occupied West Bank, torching Palestinian homes and farmlands while arresting civilians in brutal raids.
According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, Israeli soldiers stormed Bethlehem’s al-Saff Street, raided Palestinian homes, and arrested three residents in the latest sweep of repression.
Meanwhile, in a brazen violation of international law, illegal settlers established a new outpost near the Shakara Bedouin community east of Duma town, south of Nablus.
The Al-Baydar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights reported bulldozing operations on Saturday evening, only a day after the settlers seized the land to cement their outpost a mere 400 meters from the Bedouin community.
Settler violence continued unabated on West Bank roads, where gangs of Israelis hurled stones at Palestinian vehicles near Shavei Shomron, damaging several cars.
In the Masafer Yatta area south of Hebron, activist Osama Makhmareh said settlers released herds of livestock into Palestinian fields in Al-Fakheit to trample crops, destroy trees, and intimidate residents.
“They let their sheep loose among the trees and crops to destroy them, provoke Palestinian residents, and prevent them from taking their own flocks out of pens, in a scene that has become a daily occurrence,” Makhmareh told reporters.
In Hebron’s (Al-Khalil) Old City, Israeli forces forced Palestinian shopkeepers to close their stores and imposed harsh movement restrictions, providing cover for yet another settler incursion.
Official Palestinian statistics reveal the scale of terror. In July alone, settlers carried out 466 attacks across the West Bank, killing four Palestinians and forcibly displacing two Bedouin communities totaling 50 families.
Since October 2023, when Israel launched the second year of its genocidal war on Gaza, at least 1,014 Palestinians have been killed and over 7,000 injured in the West Bank by Israeli troops and armed settlers, the Health Ministry confirmed.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion declaring Israel’s occupation illegal and calling for the immediate evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds—yet Tel Aviv continues to trample international law with impunity.
