Police open probe after Israeli settlers allegedly torch 15 cars in West Bank city
Some vehicles said to belong to Palestinian Authority officials, one to a Jordanian medical delegation; graffiti reading ‘On Judea and Samaria — war’ said found on wall nearby
Police on Monday opened an investigation after Israeli settlers allegedly torched some 15 vehicles in the West Bank city of Al-Bireh, near Ramallah, overnight.
Some of the cars belonged to Palestinian Authority officials, and one of them belonged to a Jordanian medical delegation, Palestinian media reports said.
Hebrew graffiti reading “On Judea and Samaria — war” was also reportedly found on a wall in the vicinity, referencing the biblical name for the West Bank.
Investigators have started gathering evidence and other findings at the scene, Israel Police said in a statement.
Photos from the scene showed several burned-out vehicles and damage to a nearby building. No injuries were reported.
Later on Monday, a group of Jewish extremists attempted to burn olive trees in the village of Burqa in the central West Bank, a security source told Army Radio.
הפלסטינים: מתנחלים העלו באש הלילה כ 15 כלי רכב באלבירה, רמאללה. חלק מן הרכבים שייכים לאנשי הרש״פ, אחד מהם למשלחת רפואית ירדנית. pic.twitter.com/Hoz4WH75Jt
— אוהד חמו (@ohadh1) November 4, 2024
The source said Palestinians in the area threw rocks at the assailants, injuring two of them.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said in a statement that medics treated two men in their 20s at the Givat Assaf Junction with moderate-light injuries.
גורם ביטחוני: קבוצת יהודים הגיעה לכפר בורקא בניסיון לשרוף עצי זית, פלסטינים שהיו במקום זרקו לעברם אבנים ופצעו שניים מהם. מד"א: השניים במצב בינוני וקל@hod_barel pic.twitter.com/Yv7z7vBZ72
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) November 4, 2024
Settler violence spiked after the October 7, 2023, massacre carried out by the Hamas terror group in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, but violence was already on the rise before then, according to watchdogs.
In the first eight months of 2023, before the Hamas terror assault and the start of the war in Gaza, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded, on average, three settler-related incidents per day. This was compared to the two-per-day average in 2022, which at the time was the highest rate since the beginning of record-keeping in 2006.
Violence has swelled since the start of the olive harvest season last month, when the United Nations said that farmers were facing “the most dangerous olive season ever.”
Israeli authorities rarely arrest Jewish perpetrators in such attacks. Rights groups lament that convictions are even more unusual and that the vast majority of charges in such attacks are dropped.
Since October 7 last year, troops have arrested some 5,250 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,050 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 716 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 41 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
