Masked Israeli Settlers Assault Palestinians, Torch Cars in West Bank

Israeli settlers on Sunday were caught on camera violently assaulting Palestinian civilians with batons as they were harvesting olives in the West Bank.

As reported by Middle East Eye, several attacks were reported in the town of Turmus Ayya, where Israeli settlers targeted Palestinian farmers and international volunteers who had come to help with the harvest.

One of the victims in the assault was a 55-year-old Palestinian woman named Umm Saleh Abu Alia, whom BBC reports had to be hospitalized after being knocked unconscious by a baton-wielding masked settler. Abu Alia was initially admitted into an intensive care unit, and she is currently in stable condition, according to BBC's sources.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a statement saying it "strongly condemns any form of violence" by settlers, but Jasper Nathaniel, a US journalist who filmed the attacks, told BBC that Israeli forces suspiciously "sped off" away from the area shortly before the assault began.

Nathaniel told Drop Site News that settlers are "hunting Palestinians" in the town.

BBC's report noted that more than a dozen masked Israeli settlers were seen throwing rocks at Palestinians during the Sunday harvest, and Middle East Eye cited reports that the settlers had also set Palestinians' cars on fire and stole their olive crops.

According to The Times of Israel, no arrests have yet been made of any of the settlers who took part in the attacks.

Israeli settlers, who under international law are living illegally in occupied territory, have for years carried out attacks on Palestinian civilians harvesting olives in an attempt to drive them from their lands—sometimes with the participation of IDF soldiers.

Middle East Eye reports that the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission estimates there have been more than 7,000 settler attacks on Palestinians over the last two years that have claimed the lives of 33 people.

Also on Monday, Drop Site News reported that nearly 1 million of Gaza's 1.1 million olive trees have been bulldozed by the IDF, dried up from lack of water, or are inaccessible due to Israel's assault on the exclave that began in October 2023.

"Trapped in a suffocating Israeli siege since 2007, Palestinians in Gaza have long relied on local agriculture as one of the few ways to survive," wrote Gaza-based journalist Mohamed Suleiman. "Now, even that has been stripped away."