Israeli settlers and military forces carried out a wave of attacks, mass arrests and land seizures across the occupied West Bank on Sunday, in a one-day surge of violence that included settler arson against mosques, dozens of detentions in the northern governorates and fresh military orders to appropriate farmland.
Sunday's violence came on the heels of a sharp escalation two days earlier, when four Palestinians and two Israelis were killed in an incident that Israel said began with a Palestinian attack on settlers near the town of Tel.
The unrest prompted the military to reinforce troops, lock down large areas of the West Bank and launch what it described as a “major counterterrorism operation”.
That was followed on Saturday by a large-scale raid on Tel – in which at least 80 Palestinians were detained – and by settler assaults elsewhere, including on the village of Jit, where the village head said “hundreds” of settlers had attempted to break into and burn property.
Sunday morning was marked by a spate of settler assaults on places of worship.
In two separate attacks, settlers set fire to a mosque under construction in Qusra, south of Nablus, and later torched parts of a mosque in the village of Kur, south of Tulkarm, where they also sprayed racist slogans on to the mosque's walls, the Palestinian news agency Wafa said.
The mayor of Qusra said the fire destroyed wooden materials and equipment at the unfinished Al Rahma Mosque. The Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs condemned the attack as part of a “systematic campaign” against Palestinian religious sites carried out under Israeli military protection and appealed to the international community to intervene.
The arson extended to homes and workplaces. In Beit Furik, east of Nablus, settlers set fire to a Palestinian home and daubed slogans calling for revenge against Arabs. East of Ramallah, settlers attacked a stone-cutting centre in the Ein Samia area of Kafr Malik at dawn, wounding several workers and setting heavy equipment ablaze before withdrawing, Wafa said.
The attacks led to condemnation in the Middle East. Gulf Co-operation Council Secretary General Jasem Al Budaiwi said the “heinous crime” of the mosque attack came “within the context of an ongoing series of violations and attacks targeting the Palestinian people and their holy sites”.
The UAE also strongly denounced the attacks, calling on the Israeli government “to hold those responsible accountable”. In a statement the Foreign Ministry urged Israeli authorities to protect civilians in accordance with international law.
Egypt said the attacks “represent a continuation of systematic policies that fuel tensions and undermine prospects for achieving peace and stability”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made no comment on the violence at a cabinet meeting on Sunday, instead hinting at further military operations to come. Israeli forces are “prepared to operate on a broader scale against the terrorist nests”, he said.
Land and access also continued to be squeezed on multiple fronts. Settlers established a new outpost on the lands of Umm Safa, north-west of Ramallah, pitching tents in the Wadi Al Zaytoun area.
The village council head told Wafa that Umm Safa was now almost completely cut off, with nearly all its land taken over and only the built-up areas around residents' homes remaining.
In the northern Jordan Valley, settlers barred herders in Khirbet Samra from reaching grazing pastures and forced them off the land, part of a sustained effort to drive residents out. The scale of such violence was underlined by the Colonisation & Wall Resistance Commission, which recorded 3,488 settler attacks in the first half of this year alone.
Israeli military operations ran in parallel, concentrated in the north. Forces detained 24 Palestinians across the Nablus governorate – 12 of them from the town of Tel – and took measurements of the home of Farouq Ramadan, a Palestinian killed by soldiers and settlers on Friday, sealing the house before a planned demolition.
In Tulkarm and Jenin, another 16 people were detained, among them a woman and several former prisoners, in raids that also swept the towns of Bal'a, Qaffin and Zeita. In Salfit, forces raided Qarawat Bani Hassan, detaining a man only days after his release and seizing cash and gold jewellery from a home during searches that extended to nearby Al Zawiya.
Restrictions on movement and property rounded out the day. North of Ramallah, Israeli forces sealed both entrances to Sinjil and set up a checkpoint at Nabi Saleh, tightening control over the territory that, according to the Wall Resistance Commission, now holds more than 916 military checkpoints and gates, 243 of them installed since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
In Bethlehem, troops sprayed racist graffiti on two Palestinian homes in Al Khader and the Aida refugee camp and fired tear gas and stun grenades during a raid on Husan. And in Jenin, the military issued two new orders to uproot olive trees and vegetation across about 33 dunums (3.3 hectares) in Jaba and Ajjah, and to seize a further 22 dunums near Al Yamun.
