Illegal Israeli settlers launch fresh attacks on Palestinian towns in occupied West Bank

RAMALLAH, Palestine / ISTANBUL

Illegal Israeli settlers launched new attacks on Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, activists said.

In a statement, the local Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights said illegal settlers uprooted 30 olive trees in Khirbet al-Rakeez in Masafer Yatta village, south of Hebron.

According to the statement, illegal settlers released their livestock into Palestinian farmlands in the area.

In Hebron’s Old City, illegal settlers hurled rocks at Palestinian homes in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, assaulted a Palestinian child, said Muhannad Qafisha, a local activist.

Qafisha told Anadolu that the Israeli army provided protection to illegal settlers during their attacks.

In Salfit city in the northern West Bank, Israeli settlers vandalized a room for a Palestinian farmer in the Al-Ras area of Qarawat Bani Hassan town, causing material damage.

On Saturday night, a Palestinian farmer from southern Salfit was attacked by illegal settlers as he passed near the Badran spring, an area subject to settler attacks, activists said.

Data from the official Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission showed that illegal Israeli settlers carried out 860 assaults on Palestinians and their property in the West Bank in the first quarter of 2025.

Nearly 960 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, according to Palestinian figures.

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land illegal and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.