Multiple Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians have been reported in parts of the occupied West Bank after gunmen killed three settlers and injured eight others earlier on Monday in the latest explosion of violence there.
While tensions have been rising in the West Bank for years, the October 7 attacks by Hamas and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza has ushered in a volatile new chapter in the occupied territory.
Attacks on Palestinian communities by Israeli settlers, emboldened by their country’s offensive in Gaza and support from Israel’s right-wing government, have increased – while there have also been attacks against the settlers.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli vehicles were targeted on Route 55 in Al-Funduq, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, according to Israeli authorities. The road, which snakes through the northern West Bank, passes through the Jewish settlement of Kedumim.
Two women in one car were shot dead and a man in a second car 160 yards away died of gunshot wounds, Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency service said.
A further eight people were injured in the attack, including the bus driver, who was shot in his limbs and abdomen, according to the MDA.
The deadly shooting sent tensions soaring and within hours the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported multiple attacks on Palestinians.
On the incident in Hajja, the Israeli military said they received several reports on Monday evening of “Israeli civilians who entered the village” and had “caused damage to property” and Israeli came to the scene.
Two more incidents were reported southeast of Ramallah where Israeli settlers set fire to an agricultural room in the town of Turmus Ayya on Monday evening, according to security sources who told WAFA. Meanwhile Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian vehicles with stones near Bethlehem, according to WAFA.
‘Settle accounts’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation following the attack by gunmen earlier in the day. In a statement on X, he pledged to “find the abhorrent murderers and settle accounts with them and with all those who aided them. No one will get away.”
Netanyahu is expected to hold a cabinet meeting on Tuesday and discuss the West Bank.
While there has been no claim of responsibility yet for the shooting, it has been praised by the Palestinian militant group Hamas and been labelled a “terrorist attack” by Israel.
Speaking at the scene, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief Herzi Halevi said the “clock is ticking” for the attackers, and vowed to track down those responsible, make the route safer, and intensify Israel’s “intense and wide-ranging” operations “against terrorism” in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli authorities later identified the two women as Aliza Reiss and Rachel Cohen – two civilian residents of Kedumim, both in their 70s – and the man as Yaakov Winkelstein, a police investigator from Ariel, a settlement south of the site of the attack.
Rephaela Segal, assistant mayor of Kedumim, described the women as “young in nature” and said Cohen had been volunteering as a special education teacher in her retirement. Reiss was a counselor at a high school in a nearby settlement, Karnei Shomron, and both were traveling to Karnei Shomron at the time of the attack, Segal said.
This isn’t the first time in recent months that violence has broken out in this part of the West Bank. In August 2024, a group of 30 armed Israeli settlers attacked Jit, a Palestinian town just 10 minutes from Kedumim. They fired bullets, tear gas and set homes and cars on fire, according to residents who witnessed the attack.
Volatile new chapter
Recent international focus on the region has been largely on Israel’s military operations in Gaza. But another major escalation of violence has been playing out around 60 miles away in the Israeli-occupied West Bank where 3.3 million Palestinians are living under Israeli military occupation surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers. Such Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law and by much of the international community.
According to the UN, more than 500 Palestinian civilians were killed in the West Bank during 2024, with children bearing much of the violence. The UN said in December that 2024 had been a deadlier year for Palestinian children in the West Bank than the prior seven years combined. Since the October 7 attacks in 2023, at least 169 children have been killed by Israeli forces and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the UN.
Meanwhile, 2024 was the third-deadliest year for Israelis in the West Bank since data collection began in 2008, according to the UN, which recorded the deaths of 34 Israelis – 15 soldiers and 19 civilians. Of those civilians, seven were settlers.
In August, the US announced sanctions against an Israeli organization, Hashomer Yosh, allegedly responsible for supporting settler violence in the West Bank against Palestinians, according to a State Department spokesperson.
Attacks have also come as the Israeli government ramped up approvals of Israeli settler housing. In July, Israel’s government approved a large land seizure in the occupied West Bank – the biggest since the 1993 Oslo Accords set out a path for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, according to the Israeli rights group Peace Now. The area was converted to state land, according to a document from the body, but the official notice wasn’t posted until days after, Peace Now said.
On Wednesday, the Israeli government is due to hold a construction planning meeting to discuss Israeli settlements housing approvals, the sixth consecutive week of Settlement Contruction Planning Meetings, according to Peace Now.
“The shift to weekly planning meetings represents both a normalization and intensification of settlement construction,” Peace Now said, adding that if the coming plans are approved, “the six-week total will reach 2,377 housing units. At this rate, 2025 could set new records, with projections exceeding 1,500 units per month,” Peace Now said, adding that it’s as a result of “policy changes” that have been introduced by Netanyahu and the current government.