Settler rampage in West Bank sparks rare condemnation from Israeli leaders

JIT, West Bank (AP) — Israeli leaders on Friday roundly condemned a deadly settler rampage in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a rare Israeli denunciation of the settler violence growing more common since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

The settler riot in the village of Jit, near the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, killed one Palestinian and badly injured others late Thursday, Palestinian health officials said.

Residents interviewed by The Associated Press said at least a hundred masked settlers entered the village, shot live ammunition at Palestinians, burned homes and cars and damaged water tankers. Video showed flames engulfing the small village, which residents said was left to defend itself without military help for two hours.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he took the riots “seriously” and that Israelis who carried out criminal acts would be prosecuted. He issued what appeared to be a call for settlers to stand down.

“Those who fight terrorism are the IDF and the security forces, and no one else,” he said, using an acronym for the Israeli military.

President Isaac Herzog also condemned the attack, as did Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said the settlers had “attacked innocent people.” He added they did not “represent the values” of settler communities.

The Palestinians seek the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, as the heartland of a future state, a position with wide international backing.

Rights groups say that arrests for settler violence are rare, and prosecutions even rarer. Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper reported in 2022 that based on statistics from the Israeli police, charges were pressed in only 3.8% of cases of settler violence, with most cases being opened and closed without any action being taken.

It was unclear why the Jit attack yielded such a strong rebuke from Israeli leaders. A similar settler riot in the village of Al-Mughayyir in April went without comparable mention from the authorities. The Jit attack comes as Israel is under heightened international scrutiny over its role in cease-fire talks with American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Doha, yet another attempt to broker an end to the 10-month-old war.

The French foreign minister and the British foreign secretary were also in Israel on Friday for meetings with diplomatic officials, and both condemned the attack. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borell, said he would propose EU sanctions against “violent settlers’ enablers, including some Israeli government’s members.”

The U.S. has broadly condemned settler violence and the expansion of Israel’s West Bank settlements. U.S. Ambassador Jack Lew wrote on the social media platform X on Friday that he was “appalled” by the attack, and the White House National Security Council called violent settler attacks “unacceptable.”

”Israeli authorities must take measures to protect all communities from harm, this includes intervening to stop such violence, and holding all perpetrators of such violence to account,” it said in a statement.

Other Israeli officials distinguished between the settler attack on Jit and the larger Israeli settlement project, which the international community views as illegal under international law.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — an ultranationalist settler who has turbocharged settlement expansion, railed against U.S. sanctions on violent settlers and previously defended violent settlers as heroes — labeled the rioters “criminals” who were “in no way related to the settlement and the settlers.”

“We are building and developing settlements in a legal and official manner,” Smotrich wrote on X, adding that he “reject(s) any expression of anarchist criminal violence that has nothing to do with love for the land and the desire to settle in it.”

Ultra-orthodox Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel called on Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency to investigate those involved and said the riot ran against Jewish values and harmed the “settlement enterprise.”

Since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, violence has flared in the occupied territory. Palestinian health officials say 633 Palestinians, including 147 children and teenagers, have been killed by Israeli fire and over 5,400 injured. Many have been killed during Israeli military raids into Palestinian cities and towns, but settlers have killed at least 11 Palestinians, including two children, and injured 234 people, according to AIDA, a coalition of nonprofit and other groups working in the territory.

The U.N. documented over 1,000 settler attacks in the West Bank since the start of the war, averaging four a day. That’s double the average during the same period last year, AIDA says.

Sufian Jit, a resident of the village, said a group of 100 settlers streamed in before sundown Thursday, burning cars, puncturing water tankers and destroying homes. He called the army and firefighters, pleading for help. Firefighters never came, so villagers ran between burning cars to put out the fires, he said. After two hours, he said soldiers arrived.

“It was more than 100 settlers against us. At the beginning, there were just a few people trying to stop them, and then later the whole town came and stopped them,” he said.

The Israeli military said late Thursday it had arrested one Israeli civilian in connection with the violence and opened an investigation. Police did not say whether the civilian was still in custody on Friday, but said they were working with the Shin Bet and military to investigate and “bring the relevant perpetrators to justice.”

Mourners prepared Friday for the funeral of young 23-year-old Rasheed Mahmoud abed Al Khadier Sadah. His relative, Ibrahim Sadah, said many residents wanted to help defend the village but had to take shelter once settlers started firing live ammunition.

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Frankel reported from Jerusalem.