RAMALLAH, Palestine/ISTANBUL

Israeli forces arrested two Palestinian minors and injured several others in military raids across the occupied West Bank on Saturday, as illegal settlers carried out a wave of attacks targeting civilians and their properties.

According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, an Israeli force stormed the town of Qusra, south of Nablus, amid heavy gunfire and tear gas, arresting two brothers before withdrawing.

In the central West Bank, several Palestinians suffered temporary asphyxiation from tear gas canisters fired by Israeli forces in the Qalandiya refugee camp and the town of Kafr Aqab, north of occupied East Jerusalem.

In Hebron, Israeli soldiers forced shop owners in the Old City to close as dozens of illegal settlers marched in the area.

Under the 1997 Hebron Protocol, Israel maintains full control over Hebron’s Old City, including the Ibrahimi Mosque.

Meanwhile, illegal Israeli settlers assaulted three Palestinian farmers in Khallet Al-Nahleh, south of Bethlehem, Wafa reported.

The area has faced repeated attacks aimed at seizing agricultural land for settlement expansion.

In the northern Jordan Valley, illegal settlers roamed through the Bedouin community of Khirbet Samra, witnesses said.

Al-Baydar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights of Bedouins said settlers also attacked a water spring in al-Himma, preventing Palestinians from watering their livestock, and dumped dead animals near residents’ tents to intimidate them.

The rights group added that in the central West Bank, settlers set fire to Bedouin tents in the village of Ein Ayoub, west of Ramallah, causing extensive property damage.

Settlers also attacked the Kaabneh Bedouin community in the al-Khalayel area, northeast of Ramallah, giving residents a two-week ultimatum to vacate their homes and land.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, at least 1,013 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank by Israeli forces and illegal settlers, according to the Health Ministry.

In an advisory 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.