JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- Multiple Palestinians were injured on Saturday in attacks by Israeli settlers across the West Bank, local reports and the Israeli military said.
Dozens of masked Israeli settlers raided the village of Qusra in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, injuring several Palestinians in the latest wave of settler violence, according to local reports.
Videos circulating on social media showed dozens of settlers arriving in white pickup trucks and surrounding a building where Palestinian workers had been laboring in the village, south of Nablus.
Israel's state-owned Kan TV news reported that the settlers attacked locals with pepper spray and stones.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that the settlers, backed by Israeli forces, besieged a house in the Ras al-Ain area and triggered clashes.
Israel's border police and the military issued a joint statement, confirming that "dozens of rioters" barricaded themselves inside a Palestinian home while residents were inside.
A Palestinian woman was among those injured and was evacuated by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the statement said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that two people sustained injuries and bruises after being assaulted by settlers and received medical treatment.
The Israeli forces said they removed the rioters and later confiscated vehicles belonging to the settlers.
Qusra has become a flashpoint for settler violence in recent weeks, with settlers repeatedly attacking Palestinian residents and property and establishing an outpost near homes.
Settlers have besieged three Palestinian houses in the Ras al-Ain area for 21 consecutive days, while the Israeli army has declared the area a closed military zone, according to local sources.
In nearby Jalud, settlers attacked a Palestinian family and foreign journalists, vandalizing their vehicle and physically assaulting crew members, according to activist Bashar al-Qaryouti.
In the Ramallah area, two elderly sisters, aged 75 and 65, were beaten while picking olives in the town of Silwad, with settlers stealing their phones and car keys, local sources said.
Separately, two Palestinians were injured in an attack near the Emek Dotan settlement, south of Jenin, and were taken to a hospital for treatment, according to Arraba Mayor Ahmed al-Arda.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned what it described as an "escalation of crimes" by Israeli forces and settlers, warning that repeated attacks could become routine and be used to alter demographic and land-use patterns and impose new realities by force.
It called for international intervention and "deterrent" political, legal, and economic measures.
More than half a million Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967, alongside about 3.4 million Palestinians, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented more than 1,330 settler attacks causing Palestinian casualties or property damage across the occupied West Bank from the start of 2026 to late July, an average of more than six incidents a day.
According to the Palestinian Liberation Organization's Commission against the Wall and Settlements, Israeli forces and settlers carried out 2,256 attacks against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank in July alone. ■
