Surge in Violence: Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinian Lands Amid Olive Harvest

Dozens of Israeli settlers launched arson attacks targeting a Palestinian warehouse, a Bedouin village, and farmland in the north of the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.

Several Palestinians were injured.

The incidents were the latest in a recent surge in settler violence coinciding with the olive harvest season, when Palestinians head to their agricultural land around towns and villages.

It comes just after the UN's humanitarian office said the number of violent attacks by settlers last month was the highest since it began collecting figures nearly 20 years ago.

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem - land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state - during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.

The settlements are illegal under international law.

Footage from Tuesday shows dozens of masked men on a hillside east of Tulkarm. A Palestinian warehouse in Beit Lid was attacked, with lorries set on fire.

Tents can be seen ablaze in the Bedouin village of Deir Sharaf, with the sound of women shouting in the background.

Palestinian Authority Minister Muayyad Shaaban, the head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, said the attacks were part of a campaign to impose a hostile environment through intimidation and terror.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that troops went to the scene to disperse the confrontation using riot dispersal means and apprehended several Israeli civilians. It added that soldiers were then attacked by settlers gathering nearby and their vehicle was damaged.

Israeli police stated that four suspects were arrested.

In a post on X, Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the latest events shocking and serious, blaming a handful of violent and dangerous individuals.

He went on: Such violence against civilians and against IDF soldiers crosses a red line and I condemn it severely.

The head of the IDF Central Command, Major-General Avi Bluth, also condemned the attacks, saying that such incidents undermine the stability of the security situation.

The large-scale attack on Tuesday was a rare instance of Israeli law enforcement acting to counter settler violence, which has increased dramatically since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023 triggered the Gaza war.

The UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that October saw more than 260 Israeli settler attacks resulting in casualties, property damage or both – an average of eight incidents per day.

It reports that settler violence during the olive harvest has reached the highest level recorded in recent years, with about 150 attacks documented so far, resulting in the injury of more than 140 Palestinians and the vandalism of more than 4,200 trees and saplings across 77 villages.

Since the start of the year, some 1,500 settler attacks have been recorded.

The UN's Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, Tom Fletcher, recently wrote on X: The failure to prevent or punish such attacks is inconsistent with international law. Palestinians must be protected. Impunity cannot prevail. Perpetrators must be held accountable.

Palestinians and human rights groups often accuse the IDF of protecting or aiding extremist settlers.

On Tuesday, hundreds of mourners attended the funeral of 13-year-old Aysam Mualla in Beita, near Nablus. He was reported to have been in a coma since inhaling tear gas fired by the IDF as villagers were picking their olives last month, near the settler outpost of Evyatar.

In some cases, Israeli activists and foreign volunteers have come to help Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest and have been attacked too.

In the nearby village of Burin, settlers attacked Palestinian olive harvesters and an off-duty IDF reservist helping them. Settlers also stole bags of olives.

The olive harvest is a major annual event for Palestinians and an important source of income for many.

The pro-settler Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has prioritized speeding up the planning and approval process for new settler housing, as well as land appropriation for settlement construction and infrastructure, and retroactively legalizing outposts set up without Israeli government authorization.