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HUWARA, West Bank — Dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged through Palestinian towns, setting cars and houses on fire and killing a man, hours after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israelis.
The scenes of Sunday night’s hour-long killing spree bore the hallmark of a once-active settler movement known as the “prize labeller,” whose job is to extort a “price” for any Palestinian attacks or threats to the settler movement.
Sunday’s killing spree, particularly concentrated in the town of Huwara, was in response to a shootout from a passing car that killed two brothers from a nearby settlement. It also came after a rare meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Jordan, where Israel pledged to halt settlement expansion in the West Bank — the land Palestinians envision as part of their future state.
At least 11 Palestinians killed, 100 wounded in Israeli raid on West Bank
While the meeting was taking place on Sunday, a Palestinian gunman opened fire at a traffic junction in Huwara, south of Nablus Israeli-occupied West Bank in which Hillel Menachem Yaniv, 22, and Yagel Yaakov Yaniv, 20, brothers from the nearby settlement of Har Bracha, were killed – likely itself in retaliation for an Israeli raid on Nablus the week before that killed 9/11 people were killed.
After sunset, dozens of settlers descended on Huwara and several other villages in the northern West Bank.
“Instead of Jews not being allowed into Huwara, it should be the Arab enemy who should lock themselves in and not leave their homes!” read a message on a WhatsApp group urging members to take part in the attack.
“A huwara that is closed and burning – that’s the only way we can achieve deterrence,” Tzvika Foghel, an MP for the far-right Jewish power party, told Galei Israel Radio the next day. “We must stop shying away from collective punishment.”
After Sunday’s shooting, the Knesset pushed ahead with legislation imposing the death penalty for terrorism charges, despite arguments from the attorney general and officials at Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, that it would not serve as a deterrent.
During the attack on Huwara, settlers fatally shot Sameh Al-Aqtash, 37, in the abdomen, said Ghassan Doughlas, a Palestinian Authority official in charge of the northern West Bank. He said another four Palestinians were being treated for stab wounds and that an estimated 100 others were injured from beatings with metal batons and from inhaling tear gas.
On Monday, Israel sent hundreds more troops to the West Bank. It also closed many roads and set up roadblocks in and around Huwara, where roads were mostly empty on Monday. Soldiers escorted at least two groups of settlers, some wearing ski masks and others waving Israeli flags at a road junction.
An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the delicate security situation, said the army viewed the violent settlers as “terrorists” whose attacks had forced the redistribution of forces while conducting the manhunt for the Palestinian gunman who was still dead runs.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday sentenced “These developments underscore the need to de-escalate tensions in word and deed without delay.”
In an attempt to stave off the spiral of unrest, Israeli and Palestinian officials held their first meeting in years in Jordan’s coastal city of Aqaba. They issued a joint statement saying Israel would halt construction plans for settlement units for four months and allow outposts — smaller and typically more radical settlements that are considered illegal under Israeli law — to be approved for six months.
The deal also called on Israel to respect the status quo at the site of Jerusalem, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, and has served as a focal point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades.
But far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition have indicated they would not go through with promises made during the meeting with US, Egyptian and Jordanian officials.
Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist Party, the third-largest bloc in the coalition, said he had “no idea” about the discussions at the “unnecessary conference” in Jordan, but Israel would not agree to a settlement freeze “even for one day.” .”
“What happened in Jordan (if it happened) stays in Jordan,” tweeted National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Last month Ben Gvir, who has long been on the extremist fringe of the settler movement, visited Jerusalem’s holy site for a 13-minute tour, sparking international condemnations accusing him of provoking unrest.
The summit was convened to quell a spiral of violence that began with a spate of Palestinian attacks on Israelis last spring, to which the Israeli military has responded with near-night raids. The inauguration in November of the most right-wing government in Israel’s history has led to a sharp acceleration in crackdowns, related deaths and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
For many on the ground, talks about combating an escalation of violence miss the point – the war is already here.
“It was a war last night, an official war,” Refat Amer, a 47-year-old Huwara resident, said Monday. He added that during the settlers’ four-hour rampage, dozens of cars and a high school near his home were set on fire, and rocks smashed the window of his 7-year-old daughter’s room. Soldiers at the scene just cordoned off the area without moving to stop the violence, he said.
“Sure they will come back, but what can we do?” he asked. “We can throw stones at them and then the military will shoot us too.”
Rubin reported from Tel Aviv. Fatima AbdulKarim in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.