Israeli settlers attack 2 occupied West Bank villages as violence against Palestinians surges

Masked Israeli settlers hurled stones and torched dairy trucks, farmland and Bedouin structures, injuring four people on Tuesday in the latest in a surge of settler attacks in the occupied West Bank.

Videos on social media showed two charred trucks engulfed in flames, with a nearby building on fire.

The Israeli army says soldiers rushed to Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf after dozens of masked Israeli civilians attacked Palestinians and set fire to property. It said four Palestinians were treated for injuries.

Security forces dispersed the confrontation.

The Palestinian Red Crescent says it treated three people who had been beaten with sticks and stones. Israeli police said four Israeli suspects were arrested and held for questioning, in what it described as "extremist violence."

Later, near the Baron Industrial Zone, where some of the masked settlers had regrouped, they attacked soldiers and damaged a military vehicle, the army said.

Palestinians and human rights workers accuse the Israeli army and police of failing to halt attacks by settlers.

Palestinian Minister Muayyad Shaaban, head of the Palestinian Authority government's Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, said settlers set fire to the four trucks belonging to the Junaidi dairy, agricultural areas and tin rooms and tents of Bedouin families, while hurling stones at residents.

He said the attacks were part of a campaign to drive Palestinians from their land and accused Israel of giving the settlers protection and immunity.

Shaaban called for sanctions against groups that "sponsor and support the colonial settlement terrorism project."

Parties led by far-right Israeli settlers have significant influence in the coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the police force, is a hardline settler who has multiple convictions related to support for a designated terror group and for incitement of racism.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has previously proposed Israel annex most of the West Bank, approved the construction of more than 5,600 settler housing units in the territory this year alone — an all-time high for a single year, the Times of Israel reported.

The attacks have intensified in recent weeks as Palestinians harvest their olive trees.

Last Friday, the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said settlers staged at least 264 attacks on Palestinians in October, the highest monthly tally since the UN began tracking incidents in 2006.