According to right-wing legal aid group Honenu, three Jewish Israeli residents of West Bank settlements have been arrested by the Shin Bet in recent days and are being held for questioning.
Honenu said the three detained suspects were being denied legal counsel and vowed to appeal urgently. In a brief statement late Thursday, he described the decision as “extraordinary”. The organization said the three suspects were in their 20s and one was married.
The reported arrests come as part of a series of retaliatory attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank this week, after four Israelis were shot dead at a gas station near the settlement of Eli on Tuesday. On Tuesday evening, an unknown number of settler militants rampaged through several Palestinian towns in the northern West Bank, and on Wednesday afternoon – shortly after the victims of Tuesday’s attack were buried – hundreds of Israeli settlers also swept through the Palestinian towns of Turmus Ayya and Urif – houses, cars and fields set fire to and terrorize local residents.
Urif is the hometown of the Palestinian terrorists who carried out the attack on Tuesday.
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On Thursday evening, Palestinian media reported violent clashes between Israeli settlers and Palestinians near the West Bank village of Jalud, near the settlement of Shiloh and not far from Eli. Footage on social media showed settlers and Palestinians throwing rocks at each other in the area. Another picture showed a large fire near the village.
This week’s retaliatory attacks on settlers appeared to be a grim repetition of an incident in Huwara that some dubbed a “pogrom” earlier this year, following another deadly Palestinian shooting attack in February. The Shin Bet and the Israel Defense Forces arrested at least 16 suspects over the incident, all of whom were eventually released without charge. Of those arrested, two were held in administrative detention for several months. This is a controversial practice by the Secretary of Defense against terrorist suspects, which allows people to be detained for six months without charge. The order is indefinitely renewable and allows military prosecutors to prevent suspects from seeing evidence against them.
Earlier Thursday, security footage from one of Wednesday’s settler rampages showed a masked settler tearing up a book in Urif and throwing the pages onto the floor of a mosque in the city. According to Hebrew media reports, the book was a Koran, but this has not yet been verified or confirmed.
In the 60-second video, the man – who is accompanied by a dog on a black leash – can be seen ripping out pages from several books and throwing them on the ground while other masked suspects walk around.
The military condemned Wednesday’s attacks, stressing that the settlers’ violence had made it difficult for the army to focus on its primary task – protecting Israeli civilians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also condemned the unrest in a statement on Wednesday, which also addressed unrelated clashes between Druze residents and police in the Golan Heights and urged Israelis to abide by the law. The prime minister’s office also announced the upcoming approval of 1,000 new homes in Eli as Israel’s “response to terror.”
The US has also publicly condemned the settlers’ retaliatory attacks. US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides warned Thursday that the Biden administration “would not stand by and watch settler violence.”
“Nobody should have to worry about a rogue army,” the ambassador said at a meeting of young Israelis and Palestinians in Tel Aviv organized by the Geneva Initiative. “We urge the Israelis to take whatever action is necessary to stop these people.”
A field fire during clashes between Palestinians and settlers near the Palestinian West Bank village of Qusra on June 22, 2023. (Flash90)
On Wednesday, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel began his press conference with a statement condemning Tuesday’s Palestinian shooting attack, before citing the “disturbing” reports of subsequent settler violence across the West Bank.
“Accountability and justice should be sought with equal severity in all cases of extremist violence,” Patel said, referring to the same argument as in February after hundreds of settlers raided Huwara, killing a Palestinian in unclear circumstances and leaving scores injured.
Tor Wennesland, the UN envoy for peace in the Middle East, on Wednesday condemned the violence “by vigilant Israeli settlers against Palestinian residents, land and properties, including a school and an ambulance, in villages around Nablus and Ramallah…”
“I condemn all acts of terrorism against civilians,” he tweeted, adding that “Israel, as the occupying power, must ensure that civilians are protected from all acts of violence and that perpetrators are held accountable.”
Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have been high across the West Bank for the past year and a half, as the military carried out raids on the West Bank almost every night and a series of deadly Palestinian terrorist attacks.
Since the beginning of the year, Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank have killed 24 people, including Tuesday’s victims. Over the past year, Palestinian gunmen have repeatedly attacked troops conducting arrest raids, military posts, Israeli settlements and civilians on roads, particularly in the northern West Bank.
IDF soldiers and settlers at the entrance to the West Bank village of Turmus Ayya, June 21, 2023 (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)
According to a Times of Israel tally, 132 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank during that period, most of them in clashes with security forces or in attacks, but some were innocent civilians and others were killed under unclear circumstances.
Israel’s army radio reported Thursday night that Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar met with senior UN officials to discuss the deteriorating situation in the West Bank. Bar reportedly warned that the Palestinian Authority had lost control of some areas in the northern West Bank, leading to a surge in violence, and said the Israeli military was being forced to operate in those areas.
The Shin Bet has registered 147 “significant” terrorist attacks in Israel and the West Bank this year, including 120 shootings, a spokesman told The Times of Israel on Wednesday.
According to Shin Bet, security forces have foiled 375 significant attacks so far this year, including about 300 planned shootings. “Significant attacks” is a term that includes shootings, bombings, car hits, and kidnappings.
In 2022, Israeli security officials recorded nearly 300 shooting attacks, the vast majority in the West Bank, and said the military and Shin Bet foiled around 500 planned significant attacks.