RAMALLAH, Palestine/ISTANBUL 

Israeli forces injured 26 Palestinians and detained 18 during raids across the West Bank on Saturday, while illegal settlers carried out attacks on farmland and Bedouin communities in the occupied territory.

Sources said three young men were shot in the town of Nilin, west of Ramallah, after clashes erupted during a military incursion.

In the town of Anata, northeast of Jerusalem, large numbers of troops stormed homes and detained at least 16 Palestinians after field interrogations, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Two others were taken from a taxi at an Israeli checkpoint near Nablus, while forces also carried out searches and set up roadblocks in Hebron, where residents reported property damage and harassment.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a brief statement that its medics dealt with 17 injuries during an Israeli army raid in Tubas in the northern West Bank.

According to witnesses, Israeli forces raided the city and the nearby towns of Aqaba and Tayasir, triggering clashes with angry residents, with Israeli forces using live fire, stun grenades, and tear gas to disperse Palestinians.

Separately, the Al-Baidar organization, which monitors Bedouin rights, said illegal settlers set fire to two agricultural structures in the Bedouin community of Al-‘Arara east of Jerusalem.

In Jericho’s northern village of Shalal al-Auja, armed settlers released livestock inside Palestinian residential areas, damaging property.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced that a Palestinian family of five was brought to a hospital after being assaulted by settlers northwest of Hebron.

“A number of heavily armed settlers attacked elderly man Saadi al-Qawasmeh while he was in his vehicle with his wife, children, and grandchildren. They brutally beat them and fired at one of his sons, who managed to escape after being severely beaten, sustaining bruises and wounds. The family was also held for some time,” said Wafa.

In central West Bank, Wafa reported that illegal settlers, “under the protection of Israeli forces,” attacked the southern area of the village of al-Mughayyir northeast of Ramallah, and “assaulted a young man, leaving him with bruises.”

The Palestinian government’s Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission said Israeli forces and illegal settlers carried out 1,613 attacks against Palestinians and their property across the West Bank in August, including 431 assaults by illegal settlers. It said attacks occur “almost daily” as part of a broader push to force Palestinians from their land.

Since October 2023, when Israel launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, at least 1,018 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank by Israeli forces and illegal settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.