Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Khirbet al-Marjam in the occupied West Bank on Thursday night, burning three houses and a number of cars in the latest series of raids that have surged during the war in Gaza.
Local residents said settlers stormed through the village, firing live ammunition and hurling teargas bombs at people trying to put out the flames.
CCTV footage showed masked individuals entering Palestinian property, throwing objects around, and destroying a security camera.
“They climbed on top of the house and started to throw stones. They broke the door and the windows. Then they burnt this door and entered and set fire inside the house,” one resident, Maysoom Msalam, said.
The Israeli military said troops and police intervened to disperse a group of masked Israelis who had set property on fire.
It added that there had been an earlier report that Palestinians had attempted to steal a herd of animals belonging to Israelis.
The governor of the nearby city of Nablus, Ghassan Daghlas, however, dismissed suggestions that Palestinians had provoked the attack.
“This is an attack aimed at expelling citizens from their lands by settlers, a project to displace Palestinians from their lands.
“Through this attack, the settlers are telling Palestinians, either you leave, or we will burn you. The situation is very difficult, the settlers are getting more violent,” he said.
The attacks have come as Israeli ministers have been calling openly for a full annexation of the West Bank, a territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, which Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Figures from the United Nations humanitarian agency (OCHA) indicated that there were at least 1,580 attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers that resulted in casualties, property damage, or both last year, and another 220 since the start of this year.
Israeli settlers attack West Bank village
