Six Israelis were arrested after assaulting soldiers in the central West Bank, the Israeli army announced Saturday. Israel has occupied this Palestinian territory since 1967. The arrests took place near the village of Kafr Malek, where Israeli settlers carried out an attack Wednesday evening that killed three Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Authority.
On the night from Friday to Saturday, soldiers “identified several Israeli civilians driving vehicles toward an area designated as a closed military zone near the village of Kafr Malek,” near Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, a military statement said.
“Upon the arrival of security forces, dozens of Israeli civilians threw stones and physically and verbally assaulted the soldiers,” the army said. The civilians “vandalized […] security vehicles and attempted to run over members of the forces.” The crowd was eventually dispersed, and six Israeli civilians were apprehended and transferred to the police, the army added.
In a statement, the Israeli defense minister strongly condemned “the serious acts of violence and aggression against soldiers” and called for locating and prosecuting “all those involved.”
Condemned by the U.N. as illegal under international law, settlement expansion in the West Bank has accelerated since Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to power in 2022, supported by far-right parties aiming to annex the territory.
‘Official complicity’
On Thursday, a crowd of Palestinians attended the funerals of the three Palestinians killed in Kafr Malek.
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry denounced “official complicity” by the Israeli army, accusing it Wednesday evening of “preventing ambulance teams from reaching the wounded” in Kafr Malek. It also accused the army of “blocking civil defense teams for several hours, allowing settler-ignited fires to destroy dozens of homes.”
When asked by AFP, the Israeli army did not specifically respond to these accusations.
Regarding the violence on Wednesday night in Kafr Malek, a military spokesperson told AFP that soldiers intervened to disperse clashes involving stone-throwing between Palestinians and “dozens of Israeli civilians who set fire to property.”
Soldiers then opened fire on “several terrorists who fired and threw stones at them,” the spokesperson added. He also said that “five Israeli suspects” had been apprehended Wednesday. According to Israeli daily Haaretz, all were released Thursday.
Several human rights NGOs have condemned the rise in settler violence in the West Bank and the impunity they enjoy. Violence has surged in the West Bank since the Gaza war began, triggered by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
At least 945 Palestinians — including many fighters but also numerous civilians — have been killed by soldiers or Israeli settlers, according to Palestinian Authority data. Meanwhile, Israeli official figures report at least 34 Israelis, including civilians and soldiers, killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military raids.
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