Settlers beat Palestinians and activists, set fire to homes in West Bank Bedouin camp

Four people were injured on Saturday evening as settlers assaulted Palestinians and left-wing activists and set fire to at least eight homes and two vehicles in an attack on a Bedouin encampment in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Authority.

Two Palestinians and two foreign activists were hospitalized for wounds sustained in the attack at Khallet al-Sidra, near Mukhmas north of Jerusalem, the PA’s Jerusalem Governorate said.

The PA’s official news agency WAFA reported that the settlers opened fire at the Bedouin encampment before assaulting people and vandalizing property.

Security camera footage sent to The Times of Israel by Rabbi Arik Ascherman, an Israeli human rights activist, showed individuals walking around the encampment and setting tents on fire.

In the footage, which was timestamped shortly before 10 p.m., the apparent sound of gunfire can be heard, followed by people shouting before the settlers stormed the encampment.

Ascherman said about 20 settlers participated in the attack.

Security camera footage shows settlers setting fire to tents in the Bedouin encampment of Khallet al-Sidra, close to Mukhmas in the West Bank, January 17, 2026. (courtesy)

An unnamed human rights activist told Haaretz that the settlers beat them with clubs and rocks for a number of minutes and that their possessions were burned in the attack.

“I am in terrible pain and I am bleeding. The settlers, about 20 of them, arrived while some of us were sleeping. They beat us with clubs and rocks, inside the houses and then outside them, and set the houses on fire and chased us around,” he told the newspaper.

“They beat me in the legs, head and groin with clubs for several minutes. They beat us so hard,” he said. “Everything here is gone. Everything is burned, even our passports that were inside. Everything was set on fire.”

There were no immediate reports of arrests.

תיעוד: מתנחלים הציתו רכבים ביישוב הבדואי מוחמאס שמדרום־מזרח לרמאללה
השימוש נעשה בהתאם לסעיף 27א' לחוק זכויות יוצרים pic.twitter.com/1ZkGKs5Rlw

— הארץ חדשות (@haaretznewsvid) January 17, 2026

The Israel Defense Forces said military, police and Border Police troops who arrived at the scene located an Israeli vehicle that was apparently used by the assailants.

Inside the car were several clubs, the military said.

Palestinian, Israeli and foreign nationals were injured in the attack, the IDF said, adding that Israeli forces were carrying out searches of the area to try and find the attackers.

Mukhmas has come under attack from extremist settlers a number of times in recent months.

In October, settlers carried out a large-scale attack on the village, wounding Palestinians and activists, burning cars and olive groves, and stealing livestock.

According to Ascherman, the assailants in that attack came from the illegal outpost of Kol Mevaser, one of several settler communities that have encircled Mukhmas over the past few months.

It took Israeli security forces two hours to arrive at the scene from the time they were first contacted, Ascherman said at the time. He said the outpost has a standing demolition order against it, and Israeli security forces have dismantled it repeatedly but the settlers have kept rebuilding until “the forces gave up.”

Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror onslaught, there has been a major surge in attacks by settler extremists on Palestinians and their property across the West Bank.

The IDF recorded over 750 incidents of Jewish nationalistic crime and settler violence in 2025, while the total for 2024 was 675 incidents.

The attacks, which occur on a near-daily basis, largely go unchecked.

Prosecution of Jewish extremists is rare, and convictions are even rarer. Critics have accused the government, described as the most hardline in Israel’s history, of shrugging off the attacks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed the rising settler violence last month, asserting that only “a handful of kids” who were not from the West Bank were responsible for the attacks.

Police enforcement under far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has plummeted, according to a Channel 12 report in November, with a 73 percent decline in the number of investigations opened into settler attacks since 2023.