As tensions spread to West Bank, settler violence surges

More than 50 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since last week’s Hamas attack, about eight at the hands of settlers.

With Israel still in shock over the Hamas massacres and attention riveted to its response in Gaza, West Bank settlers are stepping up violence against Palestinians, forcing some from herding communities to flee for their lives, according to Israeli peace activists who monitor the West Bank.

“Settler attacks are much bigger and more violent,” senior Peace Now staffer Hagit Ofran told The Jewish Independent. “They are doing a transfer; it’s not a mass transfer but if they are allowed to do it, it will become a mass transfer.”

She said the greatest settler pressure on Palestinians is in the Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills. The 200 residents of Wadi Siq village fled after settler violence on Thursday, according to peace activists. Residents of other communities also relocated amid violence, threats and growing fear, they said.

But it is not only settlers who are raging. Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are watching in outrage at the images of dead men, women and children from devastating Israeli airstrikes that ministers say are aimed at eradicating Hamas.

“Everyone is angry,” Mahmoud Muna, whose family owns a bookshop on East Jerusalem’s main thoroughfare, Salah al-Din Street, told The Jewish Independent Media. “I don’t know if Israel is so disconnected to think that Palestinians are not one. We relate to people suffering in Gaza and feel hopelessness that we cannot help. It’s massacre and genocide on live TV and we feel useless.”

Muna said people are losing their jobs because it is unsafe for them to go to West Jerusalem and the rest of Israel. “In terms of economic life, it’s like the coronavirus days. Business is almost dead, schools are closed. The police are very aggressive. It worries me that we are not far from the bursting point in Jerusalem.”