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Israeli settlers unleashed a second night organised violence in the occupied West Bank, amid accusations that Israel's government is allowing the attacks to proceed unchecked.
Nine people were injured in the town of Deir Al Hat, east of Nablus, on Sunday evening, Palestinian medics said. Homes and vehicles were also set on fire. In Huwara, south of Nablus, settlers stormed a school on Monday morning and sprayed racist graffiti.
Settlers also uprooted several olive trees belonging to Palestinians in the town of Beita, south of Nablus. Other attacks, including arson, were reported elsewhere in the region.
The intense wave of violence began overnight on Saturday, after a settler was killed in disputed circumstances. 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, a settler himself, posted on that Mr Sher man “fell while guarding our land in the settlement in the soil of Samaria”.
The attacks came amid a significant increase in Israeli army 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.
On Sunday, settlers made well-publicised and organised calls on social media for more attacks, prompting activists and politicians to ask why Israeli troops, who occupy the territory, did not move to prevent attacks against Palestinians.
Standing Together, an Israeli-Palestinian activist group, posted a call to action that said: “The settlers are publicising this everywhere possible − half an hour from now − the pogroms are coming back. And the army? It's not turning a blind eye − it's already sending soldiers to escort the planned terrorist acts.”
Left-wing politician Ofer Cassif said he sent an urgent letter to the defence ministry and military chief of staff “with a clear-cut demand to prevent the planned Jewish terror”.
“If they do not do so today, I will turn to The Hague with an official complaint against them and against the executors of the orders,” he added.
There was even concern expressed on mainstream Israeli broadcaster Channel 13. Raviv Drucker, a pundit, opened an evening show by asking whether Israeli troops “really have no way to deal with a few hundred Jewish terrorists” in the West Bank, after engaging in massive military operations in refugee camps in the territory in recent years.
“As long as it stays at the level of pretty words, there’s only one conclusion: they don’t want to deal with it. It’s not worth if for them,” he concluded.
Shortly before the attacks began on Saturday, 15 national missions based in Jerusalem and Ramallah condemned “increasing settler terror and violence by the Israeli security forces inflicted upon Palestinian communities”.
Sarit Michaeli of leading human rights organisation Btselem, said as far as she knew, this was “the first time that the EU, member states and like-minded governments use the terms ‘settler terror’, ‘settler militias’ and condemn so clearly violence by Israeli security forces”.
