Settlers and other Israelis launched attacks across Palestinian territory overnight into Tuesday, the latest in a wave of violence during September's Jewish holidays, prompting some politicians to warn that Israel is slipping into anarchy.
About 150 settlers rioted in the village of Jalud, in the north of the occupied West Bank, during a failed attempt by Israeli forces to escort a Palestinian family back to their home after violent settlers displaced them from their land months ago.
The Tubasi family were forced to flee in an Israeli military vehicle after Israeli border police failed to repel crowds of settlers. Three Israeli personnel were lightly injured.
Two suspects were detained by Israeli forces, the army said, and transferred to Israel’s civilian police. “The security establishment strongly condemns any harm to security personnel,” a military statement read.
Other attacks took place in the village of Al Mughayyir, north of the Palestinian capital Ramallah, where settlers set buildings and vehicles on fire while Israeli forces conducted a raid.
Palestinians also faced a night of attacks in Jerusalem as large crowds of religious Jews walked through the Old City of East Jerusalem for the Sukkot holiday celebrations. Jewish men were filmed assaulting an elderly Palestinian man next to an Israeli police post in the Palestinian neighbourhood around Damascus Gate.
Social media footage showed the elderly man being shoved to the ground, punched and kicked as he tried to run away, while dozens of religious Jews stood by, with others laughing and cheering on the attack.
In the Armenian Quarter, a Jewish civilian was filmed urinating at the entrance to the Convent of St James, the main centre of the city's small Armenian Christian community and a site of frequent attacks against clergy and laity.
Last week, a nine-year-old Armenian boy riding his bicycle nearby was pepper-sprayed by a Jewish man. Although police dropped the case soon after a complaint was filed, they were forced to reopen it following media outrage.
Earlier on Monday, religious Jews were also filmed spitting at a crowd of Christian pilgrims who were praying on the Via Dolorosa.
The riot in Jalud drew rare criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who nonetheless downplayed the attack, calling it the work of a “small number of rioters”.
Other Israeli politicians who support the broader settler movement condemned the riots. Gadi Eisenkot, a front-runner in the upcoming elections, said he condemned the attack in Jalud in “the strongest terms”.
“A campaign of terror and violence, including stone-throwing, arson and assault, is not moral, is not Jewish and it harms the security of all residents, as well as the work of the security apparatus,” he said in a post on X.
“This is what anarchy and loss of control look like, which have reached new heights under the current government,” Mr Eisenkot added.
Palestinian-Israeli politician Ahmad Tibi posted on X: “Scum of the Earth are hunting Palestinians at Bab Al Amud (Damascus Gate), attacking an elderly Palestinian man and celebrating.”
Left-wing opposition politician Gilad Kariv called the violence in the West Bank a “pogrom” and said: “The poison that the ministers of the most violent and racist government we've known are dripping trickles down, seeping in at an alarming speed.”
Despite criticism from Mr Netanyahu and growing violence in the West Bank, senior Israeli ministers have continued to make attacks on Palestinians a feature of their election campaigns.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a radical West Bank settler himself, accused Palestinian citizens of Israel of a rise in “nationalist extremism” and “a sense of entitlement”.
After years of spearheading the current Israeli government’s record displacement of Palestinians in the occupied territory, Mr Smotrich is also pursuing a controversial plan to “re-Judaise” parts of sovereign Israel with high Arab populations, such as the Negev and the Galilee.
“The party's over. What we did in the West Bank, we'll do in the Negev and the Galilee too. Yes, Judaising!” he posted on X on Monday.
