Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villages across the northern occupied West Bank on Saturday night in a rampage that campaigners described as unprecedented, after a settler was killed in disputed circumstances.
Gangs of masked settlers unleashed beatings, stone-throwing and arson attacks across the region. In Jalud, a village south of Nablus, settlers injured three Palestinians, destroyed at least three vehicles and burnt the council headquarters, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
The violence came after Israeli settler Yehuda Sherman was killed in a collision with a Palestinian vehicle near the northern city of Jenin. Israel's police initially described the incident as a traffic accident, but later said they were investigating whether it was an attack.
Israeli ministers and settler leaders immediately declared it a terrorist attack. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich posted on X: “I participate wholeheartedly in the grief of my friends and longtime partners, Yehoshua and Sima Sherman and their family, over the murder of their son, Yehuda Shmuel Sherman, may God avenge his blood, who fell while guarding our land in the settlement in the soil of Samaria.”
Saturday's attacks came amid a significant increase in Israeli military and settler killings of Palestinians since the US-Israeli war on Iran began three weeks ago. Israeli violence and settlement activity in the West Bank had already increased during the Gaza War.
Palestinian activist Ihab Hassan posted on X that he had “never seen anything like” the attacks.
“Tonight’s major pogrom across the West Bank was highly organised and fully backed by the Israeli government and the Israeli army. It did not happen in a vacuum – it was fuelled by incitement from Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and other Israeli Knesset members,” he said.
“If this tells us anything, it is that this is not the peak; it is a warning of something far worse that may soon unfold in the West Bank: genocide and ethnic cleansing,” he added.
Palestinian-Israeli politician Aida Touma-Suleiman said the “pogrom” took place over six hours in 14 villages.
“This was not spontaneous. WhatsApp groups openly called on settlers to mobilise in their hundreds. Names, numbers, locations. The messages were public. The planning was visible. No one intervened,” she said.
“A group calling itself 'King David Brigades' even claimed responsibility, stating they moved between villages and set fire to dozens of homes and vehicles,” she added. “This is not the work of individuals. It is organised terror, enabled and protected.”
