Israeli settlers set Palestinian village ablaze, kill 1 in West Bank attack

Dozens of Israeli settlers torched several homes and cars in a Palestinian town in the West Bank on Thursday, Aug. 15, firing bullets and tear gas at residents and drawing widespread condemnation from Israeli leaders and the United States. The riot, which happened in the village Jit, led to the death of a 23-year-old Palestinian man.

Witnesses said that at least a hundred masked settlers raided the village. According to the witnesses, they were forced to fend off the attackers for a quite some time before Israel Defense Forces (IDF) showed up to the village.

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Once the IDF showed up, soldiers dispersed the crowd and reported that some attackers threw rocks and Molotov cocktails before being stopped. Israeli authorities took one person into custody for questioning regarding the attack. Israel’s security agency and Israeli police announced joint investigation into the riot.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that the attackers would be “apprehended and tried.” Israel’s interior minister called the riots a “serious nationalist crime” and Israeli President Isaac Herzog demanded that police swiftly bring those responsible to justice. The White House called the incident “unacceptable.”

However, a similar attack by Israeli settlers on a Palestinian village in April went without the same condemnation by Israel as the one in Jit on Thursday.

Violence across the region is up since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel. The United Nations reported that nearly 1,200 Israel settler attacks have been documented from Oct. 7 to Aug. 5. The U.N. said that 114 of those attacks resulted in Palestinian deaths and injuries.

Israeli settlements have been built on lands controlled by Israel since Six-Day War in 1967. The international community largely believes that these settlements are illegal under international law, which Israel disputes.