Palestinians say settler violence surges in West Bank

Following last week's settler attack on the Bedouin shepherding village of al-Mufagara in the occupied West Bank, the community's few cars and water cisterns lay smashed to pieces.

The stone housed village of al-Mufagara is one of a dozen rural Palestinian villages in the Masafer area of the southern Hebron hills subject to regular attacks by Israeli settlers from nearby settlement outposts.

Wednesday's violent attack began when dozens of settlers entered the village of al-Mufagara and began smashing homes and property with clubs and stones.

A number of the residents sustained minor injuries while a four-year-old Palestinian boy was taken to hospital after a stone smashed through a window and struck him on the head.

Footage published by an Israeli human rights group, B'tselem, showed Israeli troops standing beside the settlers not appearing to intervene or stop the attack and at times facilitating the settler ambush.

Residents from the town recalled countless similar incidents, including a settler attack last month in the neighbouring town of al-Tuwani in which soldiers stood by and watched.

"This is happening all the time. Soldiers sometimes even participate directly in such assaults on Palestinians," said Hagai El-Ad, director of B'Tselem.

El-Ad said the attacks are part of a "bigger state project" to force Palestinians out of their homes.

The police confirmed two settlers and a Palestinian were detained on the day of the attack, while a further two Israeli men and a teenager were arrested Thursday.

All have since been released.

Residents said that before entering the village, the settlers attacked a Palestinian shepherd near the village of al-Mufagara and slaughtered four of his sheep.

Masafer is located in a military firing zone in Area C, an area of the occupied West Bank placed under full Israeli control since past peace accords.

While new settlements continue to sprout up across the south Hebron hills, the 1,300 Palestinians living in villages across Masafer are nearly always refused construction permits and blocked from establishing basic infrastructure.

Mohamed Rahbi, the head of the municipality for Masafer, said he applied to the Israeli authorities for a sewage system in 2016 and for a network of water pipes to connect al-Mufagara with other nearby Palestinian villages in 2018, but both proposals were rejected without any clear reason given.

He said hundreds of smaller projects for better housing have also been declined in recent years.

According to B'tselem, nearby Israeli settlements were built without following any of the same legal procedures.

Around 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank.

In addition to upwards of 120 authorized settlements, more radical settlers have built dozens of outposts in rural parts of the West Bank.

Israeli fears dismantling these outposts will spark clashes between settlers and security forces.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war.

But Palestinians hope to establish an independent state in the three areas.

The vast majority of the international community considers Israeli settlements both illegal and obstacles to peace and has criticized Israel for limiting Palestinian development in the West Bank.