Over 100 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in West Bank in past 10 days: Report

Israeli settlers have carried out more than 100 violent attacks against Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank over the past 10 days, amid tensions escalated by the regime’s forces in the occupied territories.

Israeli media reported on Friday that the West Bank had seen an “alarming” rise in attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians, homes, and storefronts in recent weeks, with more than 100 cases of crimes by Jewish settlers in the last 10 days.

“In recent weeks, the security establishment has identified an alarming increase in acts of violence by settlers throughout the West Bank,” Haaretz daily newspaper said, adding that most of the attacks had taken place in the northern West Bank, especially in the town of Huwwara in Nablus.

Last week, dozens of settlers attacked Palestinian property and vehicles in the Huwwara, with witnesses telling the Middle East Eye that masked settlers threw rocks at Palestinian vehicles near the town, as well as setting vehicles and olive trees on fire. Over 40 Palestinians were reported wounded.

Abdullah Odeh, who owns a local amusement park in Huwwara, said the Palestinian residents had almost been successful in repelling the violent attacks, stressing that a group of Israeli soldiers arrived to help and protect the armed settlers.

"The settlers were retreating, but when they saw the soldiers, they came back in force and started to get closer, breaking everything in their path. The soldiers did not push them back. Instead, they started to attack us and shoot toward us," said Odeh.

"While the soldiers were pushing us back and attacking us, the settlers started to set fire to one of our vans that was parked higher up on the hill, while another group of them came and started to set fire to one of our lorries," he added.

Hamas calls on UN to take ‘effective and urgent’ action to stop Israeli aggression in occupied West Bank

Hamas urges the UN to take “effective and urgent” action to stop the Israeli regime’s crimes and atrocities against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The Haaretz daily newspaper cited an unnamed security source as saying that contrary to claims by senior Israeli officials that attacks on Palestinians were being carried out by a handful of settlers, they were in fact being perpetrated by a large number of settlers, including women and children, as part of attempts to inflame the situation in the occupied West Bank.

Tensions have been running high across the occupied Palestinian territories over the past months.

In late September, Israeli right-wing groups called for the storming of al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied Old City of al-Quds so as to increase Jewish presence at the holy site as Jews celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

The extremist right-wing groups have openly called for turning al-Aqsa into a Jewish worship area and tearing down the Islamic shrines in order to build a Jewish temple on the location.

Moreover, Israeli forces have recently been conducting overnight raids and killings in the northern occupied West Bank, mainly in the cities of Jenin and Nablus, where new groups of Palestinian resistance fighters have been formed.

At least 171 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied territories since the start of the year, including 51 in the besieged Gaza Strip during Israel’s three-day onslaught in August.

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